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Look out! 'Little Shop of Horrors' lands at UNM's Rodey Theatre
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“Little Shop of Horrors” opens Friday, Oct. 31 — Halloween evening — at the University of New Mexico’s Rodey Theatre, and anyone who shows up in costume on opening night gets in for free.
The director, Kate Clarke, who teaches theater at UNM, called the show “a fun night out,” or the start of a longer night out, depending on one’s plans.
“It’s perfect, because you get out early enough that you’ll still have time to go to your parties,” she said.
Clarke said the production is running a promo on opening night where “if you come in costume, you get in for free.”
“Little Shop of Horrors” is a 1982 Alan Menken musical based on a low-budget black comedy of the same name from 1960 about an out-of-control houseplant. In 1986, it was made into a film, starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene and Steve Martin.
Clarke calls it “the classic, iconic spooky season musical” with “lots of B-movie vibes, which makes it extra fun.”
All of the performers are students from Clarke’s Musical Theatre Performance Lab course.
“It’s a 100% student designed and acted production,” she said, “and we have fantastic students.”
Kelia Ingraham is the music director, and Clarke’s former student, Kelsi Beer, is the choreographer.
“Me, Kelia and Kelsi are the three-headed monster,” Clarke joked. “We have an incredible team.”
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The play begins with the shy Seymour Krelborn discovering a plant, which he names “Audrey II” after a beautiful young woman with a questionable fashion sense, Audrey, who’s Seymour’s secret crush. The plot takes a turn when the plant acquires a taste for blood. Seymour feeds it, and it grows.
“We have six puppeteers working on the various sizes of her,” Clarke said. “The big version of her is really big, and it’s a major workout. So, we have two sets of puppeteers for all of them, so they’re not exhausting themselves.”
Clarke sees the plant as a metaphor. “The message, obviously, is if you feed the wrong thing, it can overtake your whole life.”
The songs by Menken — who also composed music for many of Walt Disney’s classic animated films, such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” — are “all really beautiful and complex,” Clarke said. Even within the context of such an outlandish comedy, the songs communicate the pathos of the characters’ lives.
“It’s a story of people who are just yearning for something better, and they’re working hard and getting nowhere,” Clarke said. “Then, finally, they start to get the things they want, but it’s at a cost. And — spoiler alert — they really pay.”
She points to the song “Suddenly, Seymour” as an example of a song that shows character development in real time.
“One thing I love so much about that song is it’s the song where (Seymour and Audrey) go from being friends to being together (romantically) within the course of the song,” Clarke said. “At the beginning, they both say ‘Seymour is your friend’ ... and the last lyric is ‘Seymour is your man.’ It’s a beautiful song.”
Clarke also said “Little Shop of Horrors” has a strong “New York sensibility.” It’s set on the border of Chinatown and the Bowery in Lower Manhattan.
“But not the Bowery now, obviously,” Clarke said.
Once known as “Skid Row” and home to many down-and-out alcoholics and vagrants, the Bowery was already undergoing rapid gentrification in the early 2000s when Clarke lived there.
“I was right there on Spring Street, between Mott (Street) and Elizabeth (Street),” she said. “Those years were really important and formative for me.”
Fans of the 1986 film will have new things to discover in the stage production.
“The play is different,” Clarke said. “It has a lot of the classic numbers that everybody knows. But then there are other ones that are just incredible, that I didn’t know. And there’s a whole set of side characters who are downplayed in the movie but are much bigger in the show.”
The show also contains a lot of dance numbers.
“I’m blown away by the students,” Clarke said. “In my career, I am more of a singer/actor, so whenever I have to dance, it takes me a bit longer. But these guys just pick it up. And it’s not particularly easy, the dance that they’re doing. It’s very fun to watch.”
The musical will also serve to introduce prospective students and the larger theater community to UNM’s new musical theater concentration.
“We are starting a musical theater concentration at UNM, and this is one of the rollout musicals for that concentration,” Clarke said. “So we’re really excited. Hopefully, lots of people will come and we’ll get the word out that we’re offering this.”
“Little Shop of Horrors” runs through Sunday, Nov. 8.
