(The Urchins: Shaniya Reddy, Jalen Whitmore, Bella McKenzie, Tahtiana Crawford, Stephanie Tillman-Liggins, and Micah Lister)
By Montague Gammon III
It’s musical theater based on the extra low budget, black and white movie that helped set 23-year-old Jack Nicholson on the road to A-list fame. It’s a love story wrapped up in a sci-fi tale of alien invasion. It’s tongue-in-cheek, sly social satire larded with ancient Greek drama. It’s filled with catchy early 1960s style tunes and memorable, witty lyrics, and a three and a half minute lovers’ duet in American vernacular called “Suddenly Seymour” that’s as tender and affecting as anything this side of Traviata.
It’s the work of two geniuses.
It’s Little Shop of Horrors. It’s being staged July 26-28 at Virginia Wesleyan’s Susan B. Goode Fine and Performing Arts Center by the local company that first set Emmy Raver-Lampmann on her way to Broadway’s Hamilton, Grant Gustin to stardom in television’s Flash, and Adrienne Warren to her Tony award for Tina.
That’s the Hurrah Players, whose alums are scattered throughout the entertainment industry as working professionals.
Composer Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman, lyricist and author of the dialogue and basic story are the geniuses. Anyone who has seen Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, or Aladdin has seen the Oscar winning fruits of some of their collaborations; together, independently and with others, they’ve racked up shelves filled with awards.
Ashman conceived the idea of turning Roger Corman’s 1960 horror film, The Little Shop of Horrors, screenplay by Charles B. Griffith, into a musical. Ashman also directed the Off-Off- and Off-Broadway premieres in 1982. “Little Shop” ran for 5 years, got turned back into a (big budget color) movie in ‘86, and eventually hit Broadway.
Hurrah founder and artistic director and “Little Shop” director Hugh Copeland says this cast “is amazing in many ways.”
Michael Lester, a 17 year old rising sophomore at Virginia Wesleyan, plays nebbish adult orphan Seymour, who works at an unprofitable flower shop on skid row. He has a crush on lovely co-worker Audrey, of subterranean self esteem (“Daddy left early, Mamma was poor”). That role goes to Aurora Powell, who is working on her BFA in musical theater at George Mason University. Both are Hurrah veterans.
Shop owner Mr.Mushnik, conventionally described as “cranky,” is played by another Hurrah stalwart–11 shows and counting–Kevin Clark; offstage he’s a Verizon senior project manager.
Audrey’s abusive boyfriend Orin is a dentist with a nitrous habit. In childhood Orin’s career was predicted by his “talent for causing things pain,” to quote a song. That role belongs to Elijah Tubbs, Regent U. sophomore and Hurrah vet. (Nicholson’s small 1960 film role as Orin’s too eagerly willing victim did not make it into the play.)
Fun fact: Before Ashman turned to theater, he was a pre-med student at NYU, planning to follow in his father’s professional footsteps…as a dentist.
What turns that storefront threesome of underachievers into dramatic material is a “sudden eclipse of the sun,” and the subsequent appearance of a mysterious plant that rather resembles a big Venus Flytrap. It’s about to fall victim to a fatal failure to thrive until Seymour accidentally pricks his finger on a rose thorn and learns the plant’s ghastly nutritional needs.
The plant, which Seymour has named Audrey II, grows large and prospers, even acquiring a basso profundo voice. Copeland describes his reaction to John Caldwell’s “booming” audition to voice Audrey II as “Well that’s over. He’s got that role.” Caldwell worked with Hurrah in 2001, and later was tapped by Disney for roles in Orlando.
As the plant grows, so do the shop’s fortunes, almost supernaturally. Therein hangs a tale that’s both a conventional monster versus underdog hero story, a look at the potency of greed, and a satire of carnivorous commercialism and ever-sprawling suburbia and the growing power of mid-20th Century mass media, all narrated by a 5 female singing chorus that’s a clear nod to ancient Greek theatrical conventions.
Bella McKenzie, a 10th grader at Cox High School with 20 Hurrah shows under her belt in her 10 years with the company, plays choral member Claire. Chorister Crystal is played by Jalen Whitmore; she’s in her first-year pursuing her BFA in Musical Theatre at GMU.
Marlee Powell, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Hickory Middle School, joins the chorus as Evie. Copeland says if you looked at the cast and “asked who was the 8th grader, I don’t think you could do it.” He calls Powell “an incredible performer.”
Shaniya Reddy, in the ninth grade at Oscar Smith High School, who’s been a Hurrah regular since 2017, plays chorus member Chiffon. She’s already a published author, with the children’s book My Beautiful is Black to her credit.
Hurrah Hip-Hop teacher and married mother of two Stephanie Tillman Liggins plays Ronnette. She was bitten by the theater bug at the age of 6 when she saw a Hurrah production of Cinderella. Copeland commented that she “looks like a college girl” and “has this powerful, mature voice.”
Anther 15 performers, age 12 to 32, serve as the Skid Row Ensemble. The 12-year-old, Old Donation School student Winston Lewis, plays a newspaper boy. Copeland’s conversation made it clear he did not think skid row was a place for youngsters otherwise.
Other Ensemble players are Ava Martin, Ayden Downer, Dawan Barnes, Deanna Clark, Donovan Bull, George Schwind, Job Jones-Noe, Kendall Selby, Kevin Gonzalez, Mahayla Hall, Sophie Gregory, Tahtiana Crawford, Wyatt Fatkin and Wyllow Smith.
Hurrah is producing the show in conjunction with Virginia Wesleyan University as part of an ongoing partnership between troupe and school.
Every Hurrah production may literally feature a star of tomorrow, or several, and Little Shop of Horrors has rightly earned its place as one of the most frequently produced musicals of modern times.
WANT TO GO?
Little Shop of Horrors
Lyrics and book by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken
Based on The Little Shop of Horrors by Charles B. Griffith
Presented by Hurrah Players
Susan B. Goode Fine and Performing Arts Center @ Virginia Wesleyan University
7:00 p.m., Fri., July 26
2:00 p.m., Sat., July 27
7:00 p.m., Sat., July 27
2:00 p.m., Sun., July 28
757-627-5437
