RAUNCHY PUPPETS LIVE ON 'AVENUE Q'.

Byline: - Evan Henerson

LAS VEGAS - They're coarse, commitment-shy and closeted. They use raunchy language, have wild sex and proudly surf the Internet for porn. They live in a not-so-happy, vaguely slumlike neighborhood somewhere in New York, in an apartment building managed by washed-up former child star Gary Coleman.

They are Princeton, Kate Monster, Trekkie Monster, Rod, Nicky, Lucy the Slut and the Bad Idea Bears, also known as the puppets of ``Avenue Q.''

They bear more than a passing resemblance to the Muppets of Jim Henson's ``Sesame Street'' - hardly surprising, since ``Avenue Q's'' puppet creator is veteran ``Sesame Street'' puppeteer Rick Lyon. The musical began an open-ended run at Wynn Las Vegas' Broadway Theater in September.

The unclassifiable upstart of Broadway and a multiple Tony award winner to boot, ``Avenue Q'' is not a musical for young children, but it doesn't dumb itself down for grown-ups either. Even though we see their human handlers, we are expected to emotionally invest in Rod, Princeton and the gang because their foibles make them, well, human - and therefore just like us.

Maybe sometimes a bit too much like us. Consider the songs that carry such titles as ``Everyone's a Little Bit Racist,'' ``It Sucks to Be Me,'' ``If You Were Gay,'' ``What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?'' and ``Schadenfreude.''

``When I listened to the music first, I didn't really get it,'' confesses director Jason Moore, who staged both the Broadway production and the Wynn remount. ``I thought it was funny, but I couldn't quite put it all together in my head. Then I went to see Rick Lyon perform live with other puppets, and it all made sense to me. It reminded me what live puppetry does to people.''

Which is ...?

``It taps into your childhood through really simple theatrical magic,'' Moore said. ``Even though you know it's not real, you invest in those puppets. Jim Henson would sit on a stool and talk to Kermit (the Frog), and they would look at that puppet like it was real. It must be something in our child programmed to believe that our stuffed animals could talk. People just go there.''

The fact that ``Avenue Q'' resists an easy, one-line description and the need for audiences to be able to see the puppets up close made the prospect of a national tour a dicey proposition, said producer Kevin McCollum. ``Q'' is a show that is dependent on word of mouth, and it's tricky to build buzz when you enter a city on a Tuesday and leave town by the weekend. The enormous regional theater auditoriums that ``Q'' would have booked also threatened to work against the musical.

As it happened, billionaire casino owner Steve Wynn caught wind of the show's buzz in New York, saw it and began negotiations to bring a sit-down version to his Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino. Even though the required exclusivity clause would mean no tour, the show's creative team was encouraged by the fact that ``Avenue Q'' could come over in its original form: No shortening or softening of the raunchy bits would be required.

Even before ``Avenue Q'' won the Tony award for best musical, the Vegas deal was in place. Original cast members Lyon and John Tartaglia opened the Vegas run, although the show has two casts, each performing five shows per week.

``We're a completely original show that plays an intimate theater, and therefore we have to believe our best advertising is people seeing it and talking about it,'' said McCollum. ``We're not going to advertise it. We'll just say it exists, and you should come see what it is and discover it yourself.''

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Photo:

In ``Avenue Q,'' at the Wynn Las Vegas, the show's puppets appear along with the humans who give them life.