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Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

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Little Shop of Horrors is a 1982 adaptation of The Little Shop of Horrors by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, who later went on to write songs for Disney's The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Four songs, which appear in the 2003 Broadway original cast recording as bonus material, were removed from the show itself: "A Little Dental Music", "The Worse He Treats Me", "We'll Have Tomorrow", and "I Found A Hobby".

Titled "Little Shop of Horrors," the musical had its world premiere on May 6, 1982 at the WPA Theatre. It opened off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre on July 27, 1982. When it closed, after 2,209 performances, it was the third-longest running musical and the highest-grossing production in off-Broadway history.

The original production, directed by Ashman, was critically acclaimed and won several awards including the 1982-1983 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the London Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.

The score, composed by Menken in the style of 1960's rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, included several show-stoppers including "Skid Row (Downtown)," "Somewhere That's Green," and "Suddenly Seymour," as well as the title song.

The musical is faithful to the comic tone of the film, although it makes a few slight changes to the story. The setting is moved from Skid Row in Los Angeles to Skid Row in New York. Seymour's hypochondriac Jewish mother is omitted and Seymour becomes an orphan. Also dropped is the subplot involving the two investigating cops as well as the character of the gleefully masochistic dental patient (played in the original film by Jack Nicholson). Also, the role of the sadistic dentist is killed off from laughing gas instead of being stabbed with a dental instrument. The musical does introduce three new characters: a Greek chorus of female black street urchins named Crystal, Chiffon and Ronnette, named after famous 1960s girl groups. The evil plant, now called Audrey II, has been changed from a strange breed of Venus Fly Trap to a creature from outer space. It was brought to life through a series of elaborate puppets, some of which were life-sized.

In addition to the off-Broadway production, the musical has been performed all over the world including productions in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hungary, Spain, and Germany. Because of its small cast and relatively simple orchestrations, it has recently become popular with community theatre and high school groups.

An original cast recording, released in 1982, omits the songs "Call Back in the Morning", and "Somewhere That's Green (Reprise)", as well as the underscoring and incidental music "WSKID," "Entr'acte" and "Bigger Than Hula-Hoops," and only had abridged versions of "Mushnik and Son," and "Meek Shall Inherit." This recording features Leilani Jones, who replaced Marlene Danielle as Chiffon two weeks after the musical opened.

A film version of the musical was made in 1986.

Contents

2003 Broadway revival

In 2003, a new $8 million revival of "Little Shop of Horrors" was planned with the goal of opening on Broadway on August 14. Despite its popularity, the original show had only played off-Broadway and was thus ineligible for the 1982 Tony Awards. The revival would qualify for the awards despite the fact that the material was two decades old.

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Pre-Broadway version

To kick off the revival, a $1 million pre-Broadway start-up production debuted at the Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida on May 16, 2003 with the following cast:

The revival featured several people involved in the original 1982 production. Wilkoff, who created the role of Seymour was here cast as Mr. Mushnik. The production was directed by Wilkoff's wife, Connie Grappo, who was the assistant to Howard Ashman during the original production. Robinson, who designed the original Audrey II puppets and was a muppeteer for Sesame Street, enlisted his friends at The Jim Henson Company to create new, high tech puppets especially for the show.

This version of "Little Shop of Horrors" received mixed reviews, with some critics complaining that the intimacy of the show was lost by expanding it to a fit a larger (and thus more profitable) theatre. Other critics were harsher, calling the show "flat" and "unispired" with several actors miscast. On June 2, 2003, producer Marc Routh announced that the Broadway production was being canceled because "the magic, the chemistry just wasn't there." Hours after the announcement was made, the producers had the Virginia Theatre paint over the marquee with black paint.

Revised revival

Despite the fact that the revival was officially canceled, the production was not quite dead. In an effort to save the show, producers ousted Grappo in favor of veteran Broadway director Jerry Zaks and fired everyone in the cast except Foster and Robinson. New casting began on June 3 and the producers held the lease on the theatre for September previews. Miraculously, the show finally made its Broadway debut at the Virginia Theatre on October 2, 2003 with the following cast:

Hunter Foster was nominated for a 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance.

The revival was faithful to the original 1982 production, although it did use the expanded version of the title song heard in the 1986 film. In addition, the mechanics of stage puppetry had become more advanced to allow for a more "realistic" portrayal of Audrey II, which even leapt off the stage during the show's finale to snap its hungry jaws at the audience.

The cast album of the production was recorded by the original cast on September 15, 2003 and was released on October 21.

The Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors closed on August 22, 2004 after 372 performances and 40 preview performances. The closing Broadway cast included Joey Fatone (of the boy band *NSYNC) as Seymour and Jessica-Snow Wilson as Audrey.

US national tour

On August 11, 2004, a US national tour of Little Shop of Horrors began just as the Broadway version was about to close in New York. The following actors have appeared in it

In December of 2004, Rapp left the national tour to film the movie "Rent" and was replaced by Jonathan Rayson. Marc Petrosino joined as an additional puppeteer for Audrey II.

Paul McGinnis left the tour in July 2005 to work on It's A Big Big World. Anthony Rapp's replacement, Jonathan Rayson, left the tour in November 2005, as did the tour's original Audrey, Tari Kelly, and its original Mushnik, Lenny Wolpe (who can currently be seen on Broadway in The Drowsy Chaperone). James Moye, the tour's original Orin, left the tour Christmas 2005.

The tour closed April 16, 2006 in Columbus, Ohio.

External link

Although it appeared that the tour would remain dead, the announcement of several new stops earlier this year, including the DuPont Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware, proved otherwise.

 

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