The Chadron State College theater department opens its 2012-13 season tonight with the musical Little Shop of Horrors…a black comedy based on the 1960 cult film by Roger Corman that tells the story of a man-eating plant from outer space raised by a nebish in a skid-row flower shop.
CSC theater head Roger Mays is the director and says the play, despite its name, is much less of a horror than a “wildly vivid cartoon” that he describes as “very PG,” suitable for a general audience.
The musical features multiple love stories…including ones between the beautiful Audrey, who has no self-esteem, and Seymour, the young loser stockboy who finds the plant after a total eclipse of the sun, and between Seymour and the plant…which he names Audrey II.
The stage show successfully moved back to the screen with a big-budget 1986 movie starring Rick Moranis, but was given a new, upbeat ending because test audiences didn’t like the original.
Audrey II is one of the stars of the show, portrayed through a series of puppets with Michael Kruger the puppeteer and James Steele the voice. Kruger is impressed with what his fellow CSC students have accomplished in creating the puppets.
Steele and Kruger obviously have to work together closely to bring Audrey II to life, but Kruger says he mostly just follows Steele’s lead…trying to match the puppet’s mouth and body movements to Steele’s tone of voice and energy.
Derek Phelps, who plays Seymour, admits that learning to act opposite a puppet has been a challenge at times, requiring him to really focus on the characters…both his and the plant’s.
The show and songs were written by Howard Ashman and the late Alan Menken, the Academy Award-winning songwriting duo best known for the animated Disney movies The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas.
Curtain times are 7:30 tonight through Saturday and Sunday afternoon at 2:00 in the Memorial Hall auditorium. Tickets are available at the door, but can be reserved in advance from the CSC Box Office online at [email protected] or by calling 308-432-6207.
“Little Shop of Horrors” is the first of 4 shows for the Chadron State Theater Department….to be followed by “God of Carnage,” “Vampire Cowboy Trilogy,” and “Almost Maine.”
More information about the shows is available at the department’s website csc.edu/theatre, with interviews of the Little Shop cast by clicking on the Behind the Scenes tab.
Audio: