AVENUE Q is a puppet show, but not for children.

Instead, this Tony Award-winning Broadway and West End musical features "the naughtiest puppets in town", brought to life by an ensemble cast of 11 performers in a story of growing up, dreaming big and finding your purpose in life.

From tomorrow to Saturday, Sell A Door Theatre Company's touring production plays the Grand Opera House, York, where audiences will encounter Princeton, a bright-eyed graduate who comes to New York City with his dreams and a tiny bank account.

Soon discovering that the only neighbourhood in his price range is Avenue Q, he finds himself moving in with some truly quirky characters. Step forward Brian, the out-of-work comedian, and his therapist fiancée, Christmas Eve; Nicky, the good-hearted slacker, and his closet-gay Republican room-mate Rod.

At Avenue Q, Princeton also will meet internet "sexpert" Trekkie Monster and a cute kindergarten teacher named Kate Monster, and would you believe it, the building’s superintendent is one Gary Coleman.

The show with the warm and fuzzy heart features such songs as The Internet Is For Porn and Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist and first opened Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre in 2003, before transferring to Broadway later that year, where it won three Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.

In 2006 it transferred to the West End in a Cameron Mackintosh production that ran for five years before touring Britain, and the show has since been staged in more than ten countries all over the world.

Avenue Q was co-created by Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award-winner Robert Lopez, who also co-created the Broadway and West End musical The Book of Mormon. Along with his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert also co-wrote the songs for Disney’s Frozen.

Lopez and Jeff Marx have provided the music and lyrics and Jeff Whitty the suitably witty book for Avenue Q, which toured Britain in Sell A Door's new production last year and is now doing the regional rounds again, directed and choreographed by Cressida Carré with set design by Richard Evans.

Vital to the show too is the contribution of puppet coach Nigel Plaskitt, training up the skills of each puppeteer. "I run an initial day's workshop in which I teach them the basics, and then I stay with the company for the rehearsal period, working with them for four weeks," he says.

"There's an extended period where I keep on top of things and answer any questions, and because the show changes with each cast, it's a good thing I'm there to take them through the show."

Once the new cast is up and running, Nigel keeps his hand in throughout the latest production's run. "I watch the show every four weeks to see how they're doing; to see if their [puppetry] technique is drifting, and I also can't avoid getting involved in how they play the emotions."

Nigel prefers to teach puppetry novices. "For me, working with people with no puppetry experience works best because it's a clean sheet, where I don't have to eradicate any bad techniques they may have learned," he says.

Thankfully, most performers take to puppetry like the proverbial duck to water. "I've been doing this show for ten years and in all that time, I think can count on both hands the number of people that couldn't do puppetry. Out of 500-600 people, only eight or nine couldn't do it," says Nigel.

"It comes down to co-ordination, working out how to open and close the puppet's mouth in time with their voice. The rest of it I can teach, but I can't teach co-ordination, but what I've found is that most people who work in musical theatre are co-ordinated and see puppetry as an extension of their skills. Though, having said that, I teach them very specifically for this show."

Productions of Avenue Q are distinctive from each other on account of the interpretation of the puppetry. "The dialogue is the same, the design is the same, but the show is different from the West End because Cressida [Carré], the director, has come to it fresh and hadn't seen the London show," says Nigel.

"Every cast is different in the way they approach the characters, but because it's a parody of Sesame Street, it has to have a certain sound and look."

Nigel attributes Avenue Q's popularity to its ability to "touch everyone's life" in its send-up of The Muppets and Sesame Street. "Most people have had contact with those shows, and then there's the dialogue of Jeff Marx that touches on subjects we've all experienced, particularly the 20 to 30 age group that it's aimed at, though it appeals to everyone."

Puppetry is often perceived to be for children, but the impact of Spitting Image's political satire has meant that British adult audiences have responded to Avenue Q. "There was less resistance among adults than there was in the United States," says Nigel. "Though you do still have people turning up with young children not always knowing what they're coming to see!"

Avenue Q is on tour at Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday to Saturday. Performances start at 7.30pm, Tuesday to Thursday; 5pm and 8.30pm, Friday; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday.