This weekend, a favorite local playwright (Kelleen Conway Blanchard) teams up with a great local songwriter (Rick Miller), an always-entertaining local actor (Basil Harris), and a puppet company I confess I don't know that much about (Vox Fabuli Puppets).

The project is Stories for Bad Children, an attempt to raise the ante in Seattle's already crowded cabaret/revue field. Miller will sing gallows-humor songs, the puppets will do something puppety, and Harris will recite a couple of monologues written by the wicked-witted Blanchard. (One of the monologues takes a jog through the porn world: "I don't have an industry-standard penis, but luckily I am very limber and can crush a can of pork 'n' beans with my thighs. Still, after a while, you're lying under four sweaty ladies with bleached assholes and you can't help but wish for old-fashioned romance... I think I want to ride the real bull now. If you know what I mean.")

Vox Fabuli has put up previous shows in a small Georgetown theater called Tin Can Studio, which has a seating capacity of 30 or so. West of Lenin is a small theater by most measures, but it's three times the size of Tin Can. "This one is a sort of proof of concept," says coproducer Michael Hayes. If it goes well, it could be the first in a series: Stories for Procrastinating Children, Stories for Demented Children, and so on. Hayes is a designer around town—he's helped design sound for Keri Healey's Torso, a Mike Daisey show, Sgt. Rigsby & His Amazing Silhouettes, etc.—and has worked with most of the folks involved with Stories for Bad Children. "We've all road-tested each other," he laughs. And now they'd like to road-test you.