Oregon native fleshed out "Avenue Q"

It's a long way from Coos Bay, Ore., to Broadway.

But Jeff Whitty, a self-described "proud son of the Pacific Northwest," made that journey, winning a Tony Award as author of the hit musical "Avenue Q." Now he's relishing a mini-festival of Whitty works on home turf.

"Avenue Q" has its Seattle debut at the Paramount Theatre on Tuesday, in a touring run. And in Oregon, Whitty's comic twist on an Ibsen classic, "The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler," is on the boards at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland; and the Portland Actors Conservatory is staging his romantic comedy "The Hiding Place."

Whitty's big breakthrough was "Avenue Q," an arch, R-rated tuner that borrows the format of "Sesame Street." In the musical, Gen-X college grads — portrayed by puppets — cope with young adulthood in New York City.

Now a (reluctant) New Yorker himself, the 36-year-old Whitty said by phone, "I thank God I'm from a small town. My parents still live in Coos Bay, in the house where I was raised. I watch parents in Manhattan fretting over their kids getting into the right kindergarten. Children just get a lot less pressure where I grew up."

But even in that quiet coastal burg, Whitty got a solid theater education. "I started writing plays in fifth grade," he explained. "And I was fortunate to learn from these really amazing people who started their own company in Coos Bay, the On Broadway Theatre. As a teenager, I ran lights, swept floors, built sets."

After attending the University of Oregon, Whitty migrated to New York in 1993, intent on making it as an actor and writer.

But it took a decade for his career to get in gear. "My literary agent, who I'd been with a month, called and asked, 'How do you feel about writing a musical with puppets?' Then he told me the producers of 'Rent' were involved, and I got very interested."

The project was "Avenue Q," conceived by composer-lyricists Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx.

Recalled Whitty: "They had some songs that suggested a love story, and other, wildly comic songs dealing with pornography and racism," such as the songs "The Internet Is for Porn," and "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist."

"The challenge for me was to find the story to make all the songs live together."

Whitty's irony-dusted book for the show focused on such characters (furry rod puppets, manipulated and voiced by visible humans) as Princeton, a recent college grad living a low-rent district of an "outer borough"; and his pals, Trekkie Monster (a la "Sesame Street's" Cookie Monster), apartment super Gary Coleman (a puppet version of the TV star), and feisty Kate Monster, Princeton's crush.

"There's so little written about the period between college and being an actual adult, that big transition during your early 20s," noted Whitty. "The joke of the show is, this is a primer for those years — like 'Sesame Street' is a primer for your childhood."

From its debut at Off Broadway's Vineyard Theatre, to its dark-horse Broadway triumph, Las Vegas and London runs, and current tour, "Avenue Q" has required a cast of singer-actor-puppeteers.

"It may look easy on stage," confided Whitty, "but it's extraordinarily hard. The auditions are grueling. People have to read, sing and attend what we call puppet school for two days. One of our leads actually failed puppet school but got another chance and did fine."

The making of "Avenue Q" sounds both thrilling and unnerving in Whitty's telling. "It's true I didn't get along so well with [Marx and Lopez] before Broadway. But it was actually a godsend that we weren't friends. We could be concerned only with the show, not our relationship."

He admitted, "I was probably as monstrous as they were, because we were all under so much pressure. Now we get along fine."

It helped that "Avenue Q" won kudos on Broadway, capped off by 2004 Tony Awards for Whitty's book, the Marx-Lopez score and the coveted "Best Musical" prize.

Whitty soon returned to writing nonmusical plays. And in 2006 he took time to compose a widely read letter to Jay Leno, protesting the TV talk show host's rash of stereotypical gay jokes.

"I sent it to a couple friends and suddenly it was all over the Internet," recalled the openly gay Whitty. "Sometimes I get into these little frenzies of activism."

Whitty is writing a new musical, based on Armistead Maupin's dishy serial "Tales of the City." Jake Shears and John Garden, of the band Scissor Sisters, are creating the score.

"We'll see," said the Coos Bay boy-made-good. "I just feel if they could turn 'Les Miserables' into a musical, we can do it with 'Tales of the City.' "

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com