They get drunk and have sex on stage, one is addicted to internet porn and many of the songs, such as It Sucks To Be Me, Everyone's A Little Bit Racist, If You Were Gay and The Internet Is For Porn are raunchy, he says.
The Sydney-based freelance director is at the Fortune Theatre working on the first New Zealand production of the award-winning musical, which has been running on and off Broadway and around the world since it first opened in 2003.
At the heart of the story is Princeton who, like many other 20-something recent graduates, is looking for a purpose in life and, in doing so, encounters myriad real-life issues he's been sheltered from as a child and at university, Anthony says.
The other characters, some puppets, some human, include Kate Monster, who becomes Princeton's girlfriend; Nicky and his flatmate Rod, who doesn't acknowledge he's gay (who are parodies of Bert and Ernie); Trekkie Monster, a parody of Cookie Monster, addicted to internet porn rather than cookies; Lucy the Slut, who sometimes feels a bit like Miss Piggy; the Bad Idea Bears, parodies of the Care Bears; Brian, a wannabe comedian; Christmas Eve, his immigrant girlfriend; and Gary Coleman, the child-star actor who lost all his money as an adult.
"You can see the writers taking inspiration from that world of their childhood, that stuff that's sold to us as kids which isn't necessarily true - well, the world's not always cosy and perfect and things don't always resolve," Anthony says.
"We all struggle to find our purpose in what we are doing in our lives and I think that's at the heart of it. It's a beautiful coming-of-age story we can all connect to."
However, it's also irreverent and politically incorrect.
"Everyone's poked fun at in this. Almost nothing is sacred," he says.
But it's also playful and the puppets bring a special charm and magic to theatre.
"Seeing kids on the set of Sesame Street interacting with puppets and the absolute belief of those 7-year-olds talking to Grover or talking to Elmo and just believing this thing in front of them is real - there's this total suspension of disbelief which is instantly charming and beautiful to watch.
"There's something of that here, I think, with human characters interacting with puppets," he says.
"It's never a human character talking to a puppeteer. The humans are looking directly at the puppet, believing ultimately that they are real and there's something magical about that.
"I'm still observing and being inspired by that myself, but watching this piece of foam and cloth suddenly come to life, suddenly have breath, is really quite magical, as if it really ignites your imagination in a particular way.
"Only the theatre can do that."
Working with puppets requires unusual skills and the cast did a two-day puppeteering workshop at the beginning of the four-week rehearsal period.
They watched Being Elmo: A puppeteer's journey, which was showing in the film festival. It was essential to understand how to make a puppet move, their sense of gravity, their weight, their walk, lip-sync, their eyeline, Anthony says.
Unlike Sesame Street, where the puppeteers are hidden and only the puppet is seen, in Avenue Q the people manipulating the puppets are obvious.
"They are wearing charcoal-grey and dark-blue jeans so, to some extent, slip into the background, but we are not trying to hide them.
"I guess it's part of the magic of the piece.
"The beauty of that is there's a marriage between the actor and the puppet. We are seeing them as one and the same, with the focus being drawn to the puppet, essentially," Anthony says.
The puppeteers each manipulate several puppets and sometimes have to voice two at once.
"It's actually quite tricky in terms of staging, so a lot of time has been spent focusing on that to make it look authentic," Anthony says.
The 12 puppets were made by Julian Southgate, who designed Pinocchio for the Royal New Zealand Ballet earlier this year.
Producing a Broadway musical such as Avenue Q means buying the branding and designs as well as the rights to stage it, so the puppets and costumes are copies of the originals.
People know the musical and expect that's what they are going to see, and many of the numbers are well known, such as It Sucks To Be Me and Everyone's A Little Bit Racist, he says.
See it
• Avenue Q opens at the Fortune Theatre tomorrow and runs until September 17. Music and lyrics are by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and the book by Jeff Whitty.
• It is directed by Shane Anthony with musical direction by Michael Lee Porter, and features Cassie Baker, Kathleen Burns, Kyle Chuen, Cameron Douglas, Rob Enari, Kelly Hocking and Jonathan Martin.
