Little Shop of Horrors Cast and Crew Prepare for Opening Night
After months of building and preparing Skid Row, gas masks, gigantic plants, and more, the cast and crew of Little Shop of Horrors eagerly anticipate opening night on Feb. 21. Little Shop of Horrors is a musical horror comedy spoof written by Howard Ashman. It’s about an extraterrestrial man-eating plant in Skid Row and its extremely naive owner.
“It’s a satire of many things [including] science fiction B movies and musical comedies. The whole ‘I’m going to make a deal with you if I can get what I want out of it and it might be a bad thing in the long run, but it’s good for me right now’ is what this show is about,” said director Chad Little.
North High does a musical every other year, but there are some aspects of it that differ from other shows performed.
“This show is different because there is a large variety of talent that can be used for different things in the show. Plus this is the first show at PNH where a puppet is eating people, so I’d say that’s a big difference,” said junior John Williams, who plays Mrs. Luce’s assistant in the show.
Because this is such a big production for North, the cast and crew faced many challenges during the making of Little Shop of Horrors.
“One of the most difficult things for me to overcome is getting the songs down. The ensemble is in some really big numbers, so overcoming it and blending our voices really made me feel good and like we are a family,” said sophomore Rome Little.
Even outside the current musical, the theatre troupe as a whole is a tight-knit community.
“The theatre community is hard-working with tons of talent. We all support one another. Whenever we do things like rehearsals or work calls, we can usually blend responsibility and fun pretty well,” said Williams.
Although theatre productions are a blast to create and hard work at the same time, it can teach important skills useful out in the world like independence, leadership, etc.
“We are trying to get students who are taking the lead positions in our program to have more autonomy where they are making more decisions, and they’re more in charge of what’s going on. It teaches you leadership skills, talents, and that kind of thing,” said Little.
One student-led role is being the stage manager, the one who is in charge of the tech aspects of the show after the director. This years stage manager is senior Sohana Pai.
“I’ve been involved in theatre throughout high school, and this will be my last big production at North. The cast is phenomenal, and the crews are working hard to pull off all the difficult technicalities in this show. I couldn’t think of a better way to end my time and a stage manager for our department,” said Pai.
Little Shop of Horrors will be performed Feb. 21-23 at 7:00 p.m. and Feb. 24 at 2:00 p.m. The advanced prices for adults are $12, for students are $8, and for senior citizens and ITS members are $6.50. Tickets are on sale now both online and at all lunches in the commons.
“These thirty students in the show and the twenty or thirty additional [people who] are working backstage, building props and running the sets and building things and painting things and the sound system, deserve a large audience and everyone needs to have the experience of seeing live musical theatre,” said Little.
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