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Courtesy Broadway Box.

This week's Notable Opening Night is July 31, 2003, when Avenue Q opened at the John Golden Theatre.

I started collecting cast albums as a teenager, listening to the likes of The Producers and Hairspray while I did the dishes or lifted weights. In those days, before I had a job and could buy CDs whenever I wanted, I would ask for 1-2 new ones for Christmas or my birthday. Before the collection boomed, my tried and true cast albums would get played over and over again. The recording of Avenue Q was one such show.

Avenue Q won three of the four Tony Awards that can arguably indicate a show's pedigree: Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical. Best Direction of a Musical went to Joe Mantello, who was nominated for Assassins, not Wicked. Leading up to the Tonys, it wasn't guaranteed that Q would win. Along with Wicked, the Best Musical competition was the acclaimed Caroline, or Change and another hit, The Boy From Oz. What was a Tony voter to do?

Courtesy YouTube.

"Even more than Rent, he only other show on Broadway pitched directly to theatergoers over 12 and under 40*, Avenue Q shimmeringly reflects the sensibility of that demographic segment so coveted by television advertisers. For Broadway producers, who count every head in their audiences that isn't gray as a bonus, Avenue Q qualifies as a serious blessing."

*Dear God, how times have changed!

-- Ben Brantley, New York Times, 2003

Opening at the Golden after a brief run off-Broadway, Avenue Q was the Main Stem debut for, among others, composers Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx, bookwriter Jeff Whitty, and Tony-nominated actors John Tartaglia and Stephanie D'Abruzzo. I love that John and Stephanie, who lost to Hugh Jackman and Idina Menzel, respectively, were part of the Sesame Streeet-Jim Henson Company world before Q. They've never really left it.

Courtesy YouTube.

Avenue Q ran for more than six years on Broadway, then for another 10 years off-Broadway. Even if it's never revived, Q lives on in my memories as a hilarious but also deeply touching and insightful show.

Courtesy YouTube.

Also opening on this date:

Judy Garland "At Home at the Palace", which played the Palace Theatre for less than a month in 1967. I'm including it to commemorate William Goldman's bitchy as hell commentary in The Season. "Is this theatre? You bet your ass it's theatre. It sure as hell ain't singing."

Courtesy YouTube.

Cats, which was revived at the Neil Simon Theatre in 2016. The revival ran until Dec. 30, 2017. It was initially headlined by Leona Lewis as Grizabella. Leona left after less than three months, eventually succeeded by Mamie Parris.

Courtesy YouTube.

Next week, you'll meet me when the battle's lost and won.