Bay Street Theatre has had some stellar productions over the last couple of years, including Rent and Avenue Q (my reviews are here and here).

The old show bar on the 2nd level, above Club One’s dance floor, has some limitations, but there’s a wonderful, somewhat aging intimacy to the space, with every seat close to the stage.

The next production is in 2012:
The Eight: Reindeer Monologues by Jeff Goode
December 20, 21, 22, & 23

Here’s Bay Street Theatre’s 2013 season, which looks challenging, edgy, and fun [all quoted from Facebook tonight]:

Shel’s Shorts by Shel Silverstein
January 24, 25, 26, & 27

Lauded poet, songwriter and author of children’s books, the incomparable Shel Silverstein also wrote dozens of short plays, which are deeply infused with the same wicked sense of humor that made Silverstein famous.

A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, & A Prayer by Various Authors, edited by Eve Ensler
February 15, 16, & 17

This groundbreaking collection, edited by author and playwright Eve Ensler, features pieces from “Until the Violence Stops,” the international tour that brings the issue of violence against women and girls to the forefront of our consciousness.

Reefer Madness by Kevin Murphy & Dan Studney
April 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, & 28

Inspired by the original 1936 film of the same name, this raucous musical comedy takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the hysteria caused when clean-cut kids fall prey to marijuana, leading them on a hysterical downward spiral filled with evil jazz music, sex and violence.

Speech & Debate by Stephen Karam
June 27, 28, 29 & 30

Three teenage misfits in Salem, Oregon discover they are linked by a sex scandal that’s rocked their town. When one of them sets out to expose the truth, secrets become currency, the stakes get higher, and the trio’s connection grows deeper in this searching, fiercely funny dark comedy with music.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Stephen Soundheim & Hugh Wheeler
August 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, & 25

Sweeney Todd’s wife was abducted by the Judge and his daughter abandoned, while he himself was deported on a false charge. He returns to avenge his family, setting up with Mrs. Lovett, the pie maker, and providing her with fillings for her pies. He proceeds with his vengeful plans but the outcome is bitterly ironic.

The Rocky Horror Show by Richard O’Brien
October 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, & 31

A newly engaged couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, get caught in a storm and find themselves at the castle of a Dr. Frankenfurter just as he and his minions are about to unveil his masterpiece… Rocky.

Hedwig & The Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell & Stephen Trask
November 21, 22, 23, & 24

A transexual punk rock girl from East Berlin tours the US with her rock band as she tells her life story and follows the ex-boyfriend/bandmate who stole her songs.

The Santaland Diaries & Season’s Greetings by David Sedaris
December 19, 20, 21, & 22

The Santaland Diaries is based on the outlandish, and true, chronicles of David Sedaris†experience as Crumpet the Elf in Macyâ€s SantaLand display. Season’s Greetings follows Jocelyn Dunbar, a housewife who tries desperately to hang onto her holiday traditions.

Bookmark the Bay Street Theatre website for future reference.

I knew very little about Avenue Q before Sunday night. I knew there were puppets. I knew there were songs. I knew the show had been a big sensation when it was first launched.

So I had few expectations on Sunday, but the Bay Street Theatre’s relatively recent production of Rent was still fresh in my mind — the great voices, the live music, the inventive staging, the youthful vigor in every element of the show.

And those traits were all in Avenue Q too. Under the direction of Jeffrey DeVincent and the musical direction of Brandon Kaufman, the play features great production values and an unpredictable juxtaposition of the absurd, the bawdy, the silly, and the surprisingly moving. The excellent live ensemble keeps the pace moving appropriately fast.

Maybe I was just in a sappy mood, but I found a lot of genuine emotion in the play’s themes revolving around the search for identity and the needless barriers that separate us from the people we care most about. Even when the characters doing the singing are just Muppet-like hand puppets being controlled by black-clad actors.

There are regular human characters too living on Avenue Q — and they’re often sillier and more stereotypical than those portrayed by puppets.

The male and female leads Bryan Pridgen and Brittny Hargrove were especially good. Pridgen plays Princeton, the fresh-faced English major looking for his place in the world; Hargrove plays Kate Monster, a young woman with big aspirations handicapped by being, well, a monster. At one point in the show, the two puppets have a wild, alcohol fueled sexual encounter that just about brings the house down.

But as good as they are at comedy and irony, Pridgen and Hargrove are even better with the romantic songs and their occasionally biting dialogue. I see that Pridgen is an integral member of the new Savannah Stage Company — such ambitious theatrical endeavors and fine productions like Avenue Q give lots of reasons for optimism about the local theatre scene.

The rest of the cast (Thomas Houston, Christopher Stanley, Travis Harold Coles, Cecilia Arango, Kamille Dawkins, Matthew Gunnells, Danielle Frazier, Christopher Stanley, Valerie Macaluso) all have some fine moments

Because of largely silly rules governing establishments that serve alcohol in Savannah, Avenue Q is limited to 21 and up guests on Friday and Saturday, and 18 and up on Sunday.

Click here for tickets.

It’s too bad. Even when readers roundly disagree with reviewers’ opinions, there’s a depth of discourse produced that’s hard to match in the exclamation-point-filled world of Facebook.

I’m not going to write a straight-up review of Savannah’s production of Rent at Bay Street Theatre, but I strongly, strongly recommend the show. I’ll have a few comments about the many strengths and the few weaknesses in my rambling comments here.

Early on in Rent, Mark says to his roommate Roger: “Take your AZT.” And at that moment I was back in the 1980s, when the spread of HIV and AIDS was simply horrifying. AZT is still part of a drug regimen today, I think, but back then it sounded like a magic password — one that might work or might not. Or might even make things worse.

The appropriately youthful cast here in Savannah surely doesn’t remember much — if anything — of those days, but that seems right. Yes, Jonathan Larson’s Rent has some tragic moments, but at the end of the day it’s a buoyant, upbeat story. The lone death in the play — staged really movingly in this production — is of the character most marginalized by society.

Frankly, that death struck me as something of a cop-out by Larson — it would have been a much more complex drama if one of the characters from obviously privileged backgrounds had died. On the other hand, the most marginalized Americans were and are the ones most at risk of HIV and other health crises too.

I wasn’t quite satisfied with the play’s resolution of questions of gentrification either. It’s easy to romanticize the lives of those young artists revolting against the status quo and searching for real meaning in their lives, but the embrace of blight and of petty criminality is no way to create a sustainable culture or economy. So I found myself feeling some sympathy for the yuppiefied Benjamin Coffin (get it?), played in this production by the gorgeous-voiced Erik Hauk.

Beyond those social issues and themes inherent in any production of Rent, I was swept along by the core humanity of the characters as they try to reconcile their desires, their dreams, their commitments to themselves and to others. And I was swept along by the sheer talent on display.

I found several numbers especially moving, including “Seasons of Love” and “Without You”, a duet between Roger (Christopher Stanley) and Mimi (Cecilia Arango).

The voices are uniformly excellent in the Bay Street Theatre production, directed by JinHi Soucy Rand and with musical direction by Warren Heilman, who also plays keyboard in the 5-piece ensemble.

Tyrone McCoy’s Angel is in many respects the moral center of the play, his eyes and voice brimming with emotion.

As the narrator Mark, Sam Collura supplies an infectious, impulsive energy.

There were strong moments too from the rest of the major characters: Christopher Blair as Tom Collins, Brittny Hargrove as Joanne, and Jonette Page as Maureen.

But occasionally some of the singing — and therefore the lyrics — got overwhelmed by the instruments. The bigger voices (like Blair and Arango) rose pretty steadily to the top, but others needed a little more amplification or a little less music in the mix. Some of the lines of dialogue lacked clarity too — probably a pretty common issue when actors know that they’re miked.

But the pacing, the blocking, and the use of Club One’s show stage seemed pretty much perfect. Be aware that columns that can obscure spectators’ views, and the sound can be a little jangly in that space. Still, for a variety of reasons the Bay Street Theatre stage seemed especially fitting to me for the show. (Bay Street Theatre’s executive producer Travis Harold Coles is a producer of Rent and a member of the ensemble too.)

I didn’t do a final head count, but it looked like about 30 other theatregoers were there on Sunday evening along with my friend Cindy and me. Sunday nights are tricky, for sure, and the play runs a couple of more weekends. But I was still a little disappointed by the turnout.

This is an excellent production of a demanding play — one that deserves strong community support. My personal thanks to the entire cast and crew for putting this thing on and for pulling it off.

Click here to see the remaining show dates and times and to order tickets.