Concluding their 85th anniversary, Theatre Charlotte has a lot more to celebrate than longevity. For the past two years, production level has been enviably high. Beginning with Rent two years ago, musicals at the venue have been particularly noteworthy for their excellence. With their current Avenue Q, we once again have a cast that yields nothing to the talent we expect at Halton Theater from the vaunted CPCC Summer Theatre with its professional casts. Once again, it's a show that's a bit edgier than the CP norm.

Don't expect a let-up for the upcoming 2013-14 season, when Theatre Charlotte is planning to unleash Gypsy and Hair. That is indeed laying down the gauntlet to CPCC, challenging it to reclaim its presumed musical supremacy as it celebrates its 40th anniversary season this summer.

Of course, you'll find some folks onstage and on the production team who have cashed a check or two from CP. We're just not accustomed to seeing such edgy work from Billy Ensley outside Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, the usual site for his most subversive activities.

There is true fire-in-the-belly audacity from Ensley here, both in how he sees Avenue Q and how he hears it. You'll find the expected lewd gestures from Trekkie Monster as he sings his signature duet with Kate Monster, "The Internet Is for Porn," and maybe a little more than you anticipate as Nicky romances his closeted roommate Rod. Slightly less crass, we're told to expect the cast will frankly pass the hat for contributions during "The Money Song."

As quintessentially Sesame Street as Drew Nowlin's puppets are, Ensley isn't content to have his leading players merely make rudimentary attempts at puppeteering. He obviously believes we should be watching those puppets as much as the actors, and he's gotten results. But manual manipulation isn't enough to make that happen: Ensley has his puppeteers sounding like puppets, both when they act and when they sing. We're not subjected to the nonsense that spoiled Big River on the Halton stage last February, when the leading man playing Huck Finn was allowed to drift out of character and show off his smooth Broadway voice in his solos.

If you've enjoyed Andy Faulkenberry and Joe McCourt before, believe me, you've never seen them like this. Faulkenberry is our hero Princeton, the newcomer to Avenue Q who arrives with a B.A. in English, totally without purpose and unequipped for real life. Nerdy and fumbling as he tentatively pursues a relationship with Kate, naïve and willing as he's seduced by Lucy the Slut, Faulkenberry is utterly adorable as Princeton. But he moonlights as Rod, a starchy gay Republican who's the only person on the block who will be surprised when he comes out.

McCourt plays a trio of more aggressive puppets, beginning with the importuning Nicky, whose "If You Were Gay" is delivered with pitch-perfect Kermit the Frog nasality. If anything, his Cookie/Trekkie Monster is more arresting, equipped with a full-bore growl that enhances the big "double-click" laugh-line. But as he further morphs into one half of the Bad Idea Bears, perennially advising Princeton and Kate to drink away their troubles, McCourt must trot out some falsetto, completing a rather amazing trifecta. And probably having more fun with puppets than a serious singer should be allowed.

Everybody else buys into the mock juvenile concept. My first what's-going-on-here moment occurred when KC Roberge kicked off her Theatre Charlotte debut as Kate with her segment of the "It Sucks to Be Me" showstopper, three parts Muppet and one part piercing Brenda Lee. That part has never sounded half as shrill, yet Kate is as precious as Princeton. Of course, it's imperative that the suckiness of Kate's life be eclipsed by the miseries of Christmas Eve, the Asian-American therapist who can't get a practice started because her accent is so thick. Vivian Tong yields shame-ress-ry to the racial stereotype mercilessly heaped upon her by Jack Whitty's devilish script, unquestionably Tong's top stage exploit at Theatre Charlotte to date.

Veda Covington, who proved anything but shy last fall in On Q's Funnyhouse of a Negro, is a wonderful choice for sucks-to-be-me champ Gary Coleman, radiating a false geniality in her best Charlotte effort yet. Chip Bradley fits the underachieving slacker profile of the neighborhood as Brian, but even as a floundering comedian, he's overshadowed by all the puppets and faded TV celebrity that surround him, not to mention his wife Christmas Eve's accent. Matt Kenyon has the juiciest cameo as Lucy the Slut in his Theatre Charlotte debut, but he seems curiously reined-in without his usual Kenyonesque flamboyance, the only flaw I could find in Ensley's direction.

The little roles were astutely managed. Priscilla Army's local debut had her puppeteering whenever Princeton and Rod had to be onstage simultaneously - and as the feminine half of the Bad Idea Bears, cheerfully upstaged by McCourt. Polly Adkins made her only appearances in the upper story of Dee Blackburn's magnificent tenement set as Kate's crusty kindergarten overlord, Mrs. Thistletwat. We suspect that Adkins, in her secondary role as production puppet master, shuffled over to the other end of the floor to lewdly cavort in the commodious costume of Trekkie Monster when all other hands were needed below.

Microphones worked almost perfectly on opening night, so no words or wicked Robert Lopez-Jeff Marx lyrics were lost. Better yet, the microphones enhance the puppetry whenever the puppet character's voice is coming from the opposite side of the stage. Community theater this good is extraordinary - but increasingly, that's what we can expect at the Queens road barn. They're truly double-clicking with Avenue Q.