And the Award Goes to… the Marketing Department: How Avenue Q Swiped Best Musical From Under Wicked’s Nose
The year is 2004. Shrek 2 is dominating the box office. The final episode of Friends just aired. Everybody is jamming to “Hey Ya!,” wearing yellow Livestrong bracelets, and quoting Napoleon Dynamite nonstop.
And at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, Wicked just lost the Tony Award for Best Musical to Avenue Q.
Reading this in 2025—if you aren’t a musical theatre fan—you might be saying to yourself, “I’ve never even heard of Avenue Q. What is it?”
(Fair warning that this might sound a little, well, made up.)
Avenue Q is a parody of popular children’s TV shows (most notably Sesame Street) involving live onstage puppetry, a portrayal of former child star Gary Coleman, and a VERY adult story, with edgy, raunchy songs to match. The production even came with its own content warning: “Full puppet nudity, not suitable for children.”
(Again, this is your warning if you’re about to Google Avenue Q: It is not for everyone. And not everything about it has aged gracefully.)
So Avenue Q wasn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean people didn’t like it. In its original 2004 Broadway run, it got good reviews—particularly praising the impressive skill sets of its puppetry performers. But it was also a scrappy little oddball show that couldn’t rely on mass appeal or stage effects spectacle. Meanwhile, Wicked was a gigantic, over-the-top, powerhouse production and a smashing box office success that routinely filled a theatre twice the size of where Avenue Q was playing. Wicked had 10 Tony nominations. Avenue Q had 6.
Everyone expected Wicked to take home the Tony for Best Musical. Everyone. So how did Avenue Q take down Goliath?
Marketing.
On the day after the Tony Award nominees were announced, the Avenue Q team rolled up their sleeves and got to work. The first thing they did? Deploy their creative strengths.
The music and lyrics-writing duo (Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx) wrote a brand-new song, “Rod’s Dilemma,” and distributed it on CDs to Tony Awards voters. The song spoofed the Tonys voting process through Avenue Q character Rod, who spends the song trying to decide who should get his vote for Rotary Club president.
With lyrics like:
“Don’t vote for your friends cause they say you should
Vote for the candidate you think is good
Vote your heart”
and
“Remember it’s a secret ballot,
Nobody has to know who you voted for,”
the song cheekily reminded Tony Awards voters that they didn’t have to go with the big, popular show just because it was big and popular. And they used the strengths of their in-house talent to do it.
But the team’s creative talents weren’t the only thing that this awards season campaign embraced. It also harnessed the power of Avenue Q’s irreverent and “unserious” reputation. Instead of trying to present the show as something it wasn’t, they leaned in.
One of the campaign’s first big events was a pizza party at John’s Pizzeria for press, producers, and other theatre bigwigs. And in a nod to the show’s roots, the event included in-character cast performances that spoofed songs from some of the other Tony nominees, including Fiddler on the Roof, Wonderful Town, The Boy from Oz, and yes—even Wicked.
The team also passed out promotional material adorned with slogans like “Don’t suck, Vote Q” and “Yes Q Can!”
Photos by Morgan Allen
Which brings us to the next genius strength of Avenue Q’s campaign: Riding the current events wave.
For anyone reading who’s too young to remember, 2004 was a presidential election year, with incumbent President George W. Bush seeking reelection against Democratic nominee John Kerry. Voting was on everyone’s mind, and Avenue Q pounced on the opportunity.
The show wasted no time converting its home theatre into a red, white, and blue grassroots campaign base, complete with banners that were “Paid for by the Friends of Avenue Q Committee to Win the 2004 Tony Award for Best Musical.”
The election theme was present in everything they did, from their theatre, to their events and promotional materials, to the campaign’s crown jewel, “Rod’s Dilemma.”
Photos by Morgan Allen
It might sound surprising, but at the time, this was not normal Tony Awards behavior. Nominees didn’t really campaign—they ran their normal shows, sent the cast to an event or two, and maybe added a “Tony Nominated” sign to their theatre marquee.
Avenue Q broke all the rules, and it paid off.
They ran an incredible campaign, one that utilized everything they had at their disposal: Their team’s talents, the show’s unique nature, its status as an underdog, the current cultural buzz of an election year—and it paid off.
Now, did Wicked have the last laugh? Looking at things from 2025—as the second installment of a huge blockbuster film adaptation, Wicked: For Good, just hit theatres—it sure seems like it. Wicked is still the big, popular megahit.
But it isn’t a Best Musical winner, and it never will be.
And that’s thanks to marketing.
Want your own award-winning marketing? Let’s get this show on the road!