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theatre · Thursday 1 October 2026 · 7:30pm 
Avenue Q
At Dunamaise Arts Centre · Church Street, Portlaoise, Co. Laois
At Dunamaise Arts Centre · Church Street, Portlaoise, Co. Laois
Avenue Q, the Tony Award-winning musical that mixes live actors with puppets, runs at Dunamaise Arts Centre from Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 October 2026. Written by Jeff Whitty with music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, the show follows Princeton, a recent college graduate who moves to a rundown New York neighbourhood looking for direction, and the mix of human and puppet neighbours he meets there, including Kate Monster and the Bad Idea Bears. It is explicitly adult material, and the venue is restricting the run to over-16s.
Avenue Q borrows the format of a children’s puppet show, complete with felt-and-foam puppet characters performed alongside their human puppeteers on stage, and uses it to tell a knowingly adult story about post-college uncertainty, bad decisions and figuring out what comes next. The songs and sketches take on subjects that mainstream puppet shows avoid, which is the core of the show’s joke and the reason it carries an outrageous-humour, adults-only billing rather than the family-friendly tag audiences might expect from puppets on stage. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical when it opened on Broadway, and has toured widely since as a cult favourite for audiences who grew up on Sesame Street-style puppetry and want to see the format turned on its head. Expect a three-night run with an evening performance each night at Dunamaise’s main theatre space.
Dunamaise Arts Centre is on Church Street in Portlaoise town centre, a short walk from the train station and main car parks. Portlaoise is on the Dublin to Cork and Dublin to Limerick rail lines and just off the M7 motorway, making an evening show easy to reach by train as well as car.
Dunamaise’s autumn theatre programme gives Portlaoise a reason for a evening out beyond the shops, and the town centre has plenty of options for food before curtain. There is more to see in Portlaoise and across Co. Laois.
Heading to Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise? Laois has plenty more to see. Read the Portlaoise area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.