Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
Alpine Theatre Project, Whitefish, MT
Directed by Betsi Morrison
Scenic design by yours truly
Costume Design by Kerry Bechtel
Lighting Design by Rachel Naber-Burke
Sound Design by Keith Caggiano
THE STORY
Mushnik’s Skid Row Florist has certainly seen better days.
So much so that the last ditch effort to turn things around hinges on the
strange and unusual plant that Seymour (the resident schlub) has been nursing.
It’s strange, unusual, and simply placing it in the window appears to bring in
customers. However, Seymour comes to realize that the only way to keep the new
cash-cow alive is to feed it …(horrors!) blood… As Mushnik and Seymour’s
fortunes turn around, the plant becomes hungrier and hungrier, enticing Seymour
to feed it bigger and bloodier things, including the local sadistic dentist,
Orin Crivello, DDS, who has been dating/beating up Audrey, the flower shop girl
whom Seymour adores (not so) secretly.
As Mushnik sees Seymour move in on the now-abandoned Audrey,
he begins piecing together that Seymour must be at fault. Realizing this, and
knowing that the plant is hungry, Seymour lures Mushnik into the waiting,
ravenous jaws of the plant. Seymour’s plant (known as Audrey2) has caused such
a big stir that attention is growing, nation-wise, and Seymour plans to
capitalize on the media coverage and escaping with his ladylove, Audrey, to the
beautifully manicured “suburbs”, but is thwarted when the plant lures Audrey
into its jaws and kills her. Seymour, having started with nothing, begun to see
his dreams come true, and then watch it all go down the gullet of a
cannibalistic plant from outer-space, decides to take a machete to the plant,
but succumbs himself. What could be more normal?!?!?!
It’s really a lovely doo-wop-filled musical comedy, by the
team that ultimately penned, Disney’s Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
Though, even through the comedy, there’s certainly a mild indictment of
American’s consumer/media culture of hero-worship, and the pitfalls of a
slippery moral slope, and it’s all based on an old black-and-white “shocker”
movie, called, coincidentally, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.
OUR PRODUCTION
This was my first time working with the Montana-based ALPINE
THEATRE PROJECT. And it was a bit of an … odd process -- in part because I was
designing this one “blind”. From the beginning we all knew that the first time
I would be IN the actual theatre would be after most of the set was built and
the show well into rehearsals. This can be a challenge as there are often
things about how the space works that a designer gleans from actually BEING in
the space. While I can be given every legitimate drawing and many pictures of
the space, there’s something about walking around it and asking questions, and
seeing how the space actually EXISTS that is useful. This is especially true
when working on a show that has many moving and interconnected parts... like
most musicals are.
The design conversations about this one were EXTREMELY fun,
as the show is set in the late 50/early 60’s --a REALLY neat visual era, in my
humble estimation ---and the director really wanted to focus on the mytihica
skid-row of New York in that time frame,. We took as our visual cue the
movie/monster movies of the period… Attack of the 50’ Tall Woman, The BLOB,
Plan 9 from Outer Space…and from the pulpy teen comics that came about from
that era. She really wanted us to play-up the
comic-book feel, and I was glad to go there, as it’s a style that I
haven’t played in a lot recently.
here's some of the research we started with.....
Thy physical world of the play is (primarily) the interior
of Mushnik’s shop, and outside of the shop there along SKID ROW. One of the
physical challenges is that the shop has to close and open repeatedly
throughout the show since the interior of the shop has to change several times,
more often than not in order to get the various AUDREY 2 plant puppets on and
off stage.
the interior of the shop, Seymour with AUFREY plant #1 in hand
a little later in act 1 (that's the AUDREY #3 plant with a puppeteer inside it)
The fun thing about THE PLANT is that there are actually 4 of them.
A small potted one that comes out in the first scene, a slightly larger potted
one that’s worn as part of a jacket that Seymour wears during the number “YOU
NEVER KNOW”. There’s then a body-puppet (big enough for a grown man/puppeteer)
to be inside and manipulate, that closes out the first act. The final plant is
a behemoth, much larger than plant #3, in that it has to accommodate the
puppeteer, as well as the action of the PLANT needing to, onstage, EAT three
actors. Honestly, the engineering of the plant is a marvel, as this last one
has to be manipulate-able by a single puppeteer, (who is coordinated with an
offstage singer who sings/speaks all of the plants lines) and then the jaw has
to open wide enough to allow the actors playing Mushnik, Audrey and then
Seymour to grapple with/enter into the plant and be eaten, in full view of the
audience
here's a link with some footage from the show, all 4 AUDREY plants have a little stage time here...
Our set consisted of a series of forced-perspective
buildings--that simulate a dense urban SKID ROW, in comic-like grays and blues.
These building surround and dwarf Mushnik’s shop, which I rendered in warmer
corals, beiges and lighter blues.
SKID ROW
the FINALE -- Don't Feed the Plants!!!
There were a number of challenges with this production, and
rather than go into those, I’d rather focus on the visual fun of the show.
While there were some financial and time-related challenges that were
impossible to foresee when we started, I do think it ultimately looked fun
onstage, and the audience opening night was certainly having a ball.
Rough Model pictures....
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