Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Book by Jeff Whitty. Directed by Peter Jorgensen. Musical direction by Sean Bayntun. An Arts Club production. At the Granville Island Stage on Tuesday, June 25. Continues until August 3

It’s a winner. The Arts Club’s production of Avenue Q, a sort of R-rated version of Sesame Street, gets everything right.

First, there’s the material: Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx scored an off-Broadway hit with this show 10 years ago; it went on to long runs on Broadway and in London’s West End, and scooped up a handful of Tony awards along the way. It’s not hard to see why. The script is fresh and irreverent, the form pushes boundaries by using puppets and projections, and the songs immediately distinguish themselves from the ho-hum tunelessness of so many recent musicals.

Avenue Q’s story line revolves around the lives and loves of a group of neighbours on a sketchy street. Among the unemployed and disillusioned are Princeton, fresh out of college and looking for a purpose in life; kindergarten teacher Monster Kate, a passionate advocate for “people of fur”; and best-friend roomies Nicky and Rod (obviously inspired by Ernie and Bert). Like the ones on Sesame Street, these puppet characters interact with humans, but nobody’s here to dish up well-intentioned platitudes about how everyone is special. The play announces its agenda—and its high musical standards—in the first big number, “It Sucks to Be Me”. That Lopez and Marx are affectionately giving the finger to political correctness is evident from the song titles alone—“Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, “The Internet Is for Porn”, “Schadenfreude”—but you have to see the show to know just how gleefully they do it, and how much fun it is to watch.

Much of the credit for that goes to director Peter Jorgensen, who has assembled a killer cast—about half of whose members manipulate puppets in addition to singing and acting their butts off. Veteran Vancouver actor Scott Bellis extends his already considerable range, playing three wildly different puppet roles: the filthy-minded Trekkie Monster, the schleppy Nicky, and one of the Bad Idea Bears, who have a knack for popping up at just the right moment to cheerfully suggest problem-solvers like excessive drinking, promiscuity, and suicide. Kayla Dunbar is earthy and sassy as both the idealistic Kate Monster and the callous vixen Lucy. As Rod and Princeton, newcomer Andrew MacDonald-Smith displays sweet sincerity and unflagging energy, sometimes voicing two different puppet characters in the same scene. Shannon Chan-Kent, Evangelia Kambites, Jeny Cassady, and Andy Toth are all terrific actors and singers—we never miss a word of the witty lyrics to these catchy tunes, and when everyone sings together, it’s pure bliss.

Jorgensen’s attention to detail pays off elsewhere, too: Marshall McMahen’s set is like Sesame Street on crack, with crooked bars on the crooked windows of crooked buildings. Musical director Sean Bayntun leads a tight, four-piece band tucked upstage in front of a dirty skyline, and Michael Sider’s video projections add some distinctly local touches to the satire.

If you’re not afraid to see muppets get very, very naughty, you’re in for one of the summer’s biggest treats.