Who has customers when you run a flower shop on Skid Row? the owner, Mr. Mushnik (Fred Major), laments to his two lame-brain employees, Seymour (Steve Routman) and Audrey (Audrey Klinger), as the day ends without a single person coming by. But when Seymour suddenly produces from the back room and places in the front window a weird-looking plant he has been nurturing, the shop begins drawing customers galore along with swarms of interviewers who make Seymour famous in every media outlet.
The inspired silliness of Roger Corman's cheapie cult film, "The Little Shop of Horrors," about a sinister plant that demands - and gets - human flesh and blood to survive and grow, inspired Howard Ashman and Alan Menken to turn it into a wildly successful off-Broadway musical in 1982. Actors Theater of Louisville has assembled a wickedly funny cast for the musical's latest incarnation. From the three street-smart urchins (Marlayna Syms, Cassandra White, and Renee Howard), whose pop-music early Sixties "girl group" sound has them functioning as a kind of Greek chorus, to Audrey's hilariously sadistic, leather-clad dentist boyfriend Orin (Mark Martino), the actors do a marvelously tuneful sendup of the genre. Audrey Klinger as, yes, Audrey, and Steve Routman as klutzy Seymour duet beautifully on their big love song, "Suddenly, Seymour," and Klinger is adorable and touching as she sings about her dream of a tract house with a chain-link fence in a place "Somewhere That's Green" - like Levittown.
Seymour names his unusual plant Audrey II because of his secret love for his sexy shopmate. With Michael James Leslie voicing the plant's ominous demands and Peter Stone providing its movements, the plant becomes almost real enough to have you believe it plans to eat Cleveland and other cities along its way to world domination.
Director and choreographer Pamela Hunt, supported by Scott Kasbaum's musical direction, moves the show at a fast clip. Rob Odorisio's colorful cartoon set of Skid Row buildings and John Carver Sullivan's bright costumes are perky assets in this bizarre little gem.
