Don't Feed the Plants: Central’s Acting Class Ends the Year With Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors is many things: a black comedy about a talking plant from space, twisted allegory for capitalism, and this year's pick for Central’s acting class’s annual production. The show has been done many times over on both local stages and under the lights of Broadway—and Central itself has done the show previously. Because of this, I was curious to see how the acting class would reinterpret the show this time around.

What made me even more curious about the show was the break-neck turnaround from the end of Mamma Mia to performances for Little Shop of Horrors. Now, acting class turning out shows in a very short amount of time is fairly common due to production happening at the end of the year. “Acting class usually does shows pretty quickly because we do poetry in the beginning. and then we usually do a straight play, and then we do a musical.” Central’s Drama Director Ladonna Wilson explained. “This year we didn’t do a straight play in the middle, but we had Mamma Mia going on at the same time.”

Mamma Mia, specifically, was the source of all my intrigue, as its end and the beginning of Little Shop of Horrors greatly overlapped. This was bound to put some constraints on rehearsal time. “So in class, they had their lines but I didn’t do any direction ‘till just a couple weeks before.” Wilson said. “Probably, in total, we probably did 10 rehearsals for the whole show.”

Student actors definitely felt the strain of this time crunch, since many of the actors playing leading roles in Mamma Mia were also playing leading roles in Little Shop of Horrors. “Right after Mamma Mia, I had COVID, then AP testing, then I went straight into this.” Isabel Curtis, who played Ronnette said. “I’ve done acting class before, but this was a special type of hell.” Things like learning choreography and harmonies were made a lot more challenging due to the small amount of rehearsals, as well as the actors having to work on a lot of the material by themselves. “In all honesty, this show didn’t really feel real until it was tech week.” Kate Roth, who played Mrs. Mushnik, admitted.

But nevertheless, Central Drama did what Central Drama does best: pulled through. “It just goes to show how talented and committed our students are.” Wilson explained. “We had thespians who couldn’t be in acting class who were part of the ensemble, that did tech, that did lighting, and sound. So, we had a lot of support.” Central’s acting class also had the benefit of using tracks instead of a live band, which helped students really nail down the timing in all their songs.

Central’s Little Shop of Horrors ran May 13 through May 15, and I saw the May 14 performance. Entering the theater, I was greeted with classic 60s pop songs blasting from the speakers. As I got settled into my seat, ensemble members began talking to the audience and each other in character. From the despondent, the desperate, to the downright criminal, everyone had their own “Skid-Row” persona. The audience interaction wasn’t just inside the theater, however, as cast members Rachel Gilett and Ellis Mansfield manned the concession station as two cranky Skid Row residents. I’ve always loved Central’s usage of in-character ushers, as they really help immerse the audience in the world of the show before it starts, and Little Shop of Horrors, with its group of ragamuffins and rogues, certainly was no exception to this. One moment that made me laugh and really helped set the tone of the show was when cast member Abigail Eilbract (who plays Audrey II later on in the show) came up to the person sitting next to me and handed them a taped packet, saying that new customers get the first order free. Before leaving, she quipped “Careful, it’s still hot!” much to the amusement of me and the other audience members.

The set, resembling a flower shop, was simplistic, but a great vehicle for storytelling. The clock hung to the wall had moveable hands which were turned throughout the show to represent the passage of time. Banners were hung and cobwebs were dusted off the register as a sign of Mushnik’s store prospering. Though most of the scenes took place within the flower shop, location changes were either established through walking out the flower shop door and going “outside” or a screen placed downstage for the dentist’s office. Most of the items were sourced from whatever was on hand. “The furniture, we pretty much just found things that were around. There was a white stool there that we painted to match the desk.” Wilson explained. “[For] the dentist chair, Mahomet-Seymour High School had done the show years ago. so I contacted their director. They’d actually borrowed it from Danville, they still had it, so they were like ‘If you will return it, you can take it from us!’” While I loved the entire set, the set pieces that really stole the show, have got to be the plant puppets.

Those who are familiar with the show know about its titular character: a blood-thirsty, alien plant named Audrey II, or Twoey for short. Oftentimes, puppets of varying sizes are used throughout the show and operated by puppeteers or cast members, while the actor providing Twoey’s voice usually remains backstage. Central’s puppeteer Eric Lim hadn’t initially been expecting the role that he got. “I first said that I wanted to do ensemble, I didn’t even mention puppeteering.” Eric explained. “But Wilson sent out an email asking if I was interested [in operating the puppets] and I took the role right away.” Expressing emotions through the puppet was something Eric frequently considered. “For [Abby’s] vibrato, I’d shake [the puppet’s] mouth a little and to express that [the plant] is angry, I’d open the mouth even more.” The process of getting the puppet in sync with Abby’s singing took some patience, however. “I didn’t know any of her lines before.” Eric “But [Abby] stuck with it, stuck with me, went through everything, and I learned how I should use the puppet to match her talking.” The efforts paid off, as the puppets were always seamlessly timed to Abby’s dynamic singing.

Audrey II herself never failed to keep the show lively. The role, traditionally played by a man, was given a full makeover by Abigail. “I love the idea that Audrey II is a woman, because it is named after Audrey.” Wilson said. “She could still be sassy and mean spirited.” With her powerful belts, Abigail perfectly embodied the otherworldly nature of the plant and made every song a showstopper. Her snippy comebacks kept the characters on their toes and the audience laughing. She completely took command of the stage and delivered a performance that would make the scariest of antagonists cower in fear.

Now Twoey wasn’t the only genderbent character in this production. Playing the role of the greedy flower shop owner originally called Mr. Mushnik, Kate Roth surprised me in the best way possible with her characterization of “Ms. Mushnik.” For many, including myself, this was my first experience watching the role played by a woman, and I wasn’t sure if I could get behind it at first. But Ms. Mushnik, with her tango skills and striking resemblance to Annie’s Ms. Hannigan convinced me otherwise. She was mean, she was spiteful, and wickedly funny. The gender change came with alterations to Mushnik’s initial characterization as well. “We changed a lot of Mushnik’s character, from playing her just a bit younger (I saw her as being around 50) to changing around her motivations.” Kate explained. “Male Mushnik is protective of Audrey in a fatherly way, while female Mushnik sees her past relationships in that of Audrey’s, and sympathizes with her struggles.” The largest change to the character came with her relationship with the main character Seymour, with implications that Ms. Mushnik has romantic feelings for the young man. This translated into the usually comedic song Mushnik and Son —in which Mushnik desperately tries to convince Seymour not to leave him by offering to adopt him— to gain a seductive undertone. The choice was an interesting one, and draws further parallels between Seymour and Audrey, who are now both objectified in their abusive relationships.

In regards to casting for the leads, it was important to Wilson that Seymour and Audrey's voices melded well together. Wade Schacht, who played Seymour Krelborn, and Ainsley Holland, who played Audrey Fulquard, certainly proved that with their beautiful rendition of Suddenly Seymour. However, they brought more to the roles than just their singing abilities. Wade, whom I’m most used to seeing in more dashing and suave roles, brought out a nerdy and more vulnerable side with his portrayal of Seymour (his awkward dancing in Feed Me/Git It was one of my favorite moments from the show.) The earnestnesses he brought to the role helped turn Seymour into a character you root for. For Ainsley on the other hand, I knew from the moment she toitered onstage in her heels that I was going to enjoy her performance. Ainsley went the more traditional route with Audrey’s character, but still made the role her own. With her impeccable comedic timing and hopeful aura, she helped ground Audrey’s character, preventing her from becoming one-note. As Wilson said “The dark comedy comes in if the characters are still believable. You can’t play it just as a comedic character, or we don’t care about them when they die, or we don’t care for them when they get hurt.”

Villain-wise, with Twoey and Mushnik out of the way that leaves us with the sadistic Orin Scrivello (D.D.S.) played by Robert Russell. Robert, who’s new to the Central drama family, was both frightening and entertaining in his rendition of Dentist!. At one point, he even hopped off the stage and started talking to audience members directly during his solo. I’ll never forget how he left the audience in stitches when he came on stage with his ludicrously humongous gas mask. Russell perfectly captured the pain-loving dentist’s frightening side, which made the audience love to hate him, but delivered just enough charm and wackiness to make us hate to love him.

The street urchin trio of Chiffon, Crystal, and Ronnette (played by Sierra Smith, Bess Chamley, and Isabel Curtis respectively) traditionally act as a Greek chorus for the show. The three actresses brought a lot of spunk and fun to their roles. They looked like they were having a good time performing, which made the audience have a great time while watching them. The actresses took inspiration from 60s girl groups when coming up with their backstories. “We decided that Sierra and I were sisters, and Isabel was our cousin. This was partly inspired by the Ronettes, who were a sisters-and-cousin trio in the 1960s.” The closeness the roles required necessitated bonds being formed between the actresses. “Before the show, I didn’t really know either of my trio members—Isabel or Bess. I was acquainted with them after Mamma Mia, but didn’t know them super personally.” Sierra Smith, who played Chiffon said. “Over this show, I feel I’ve developed unique relationships with both of them, being able to joke with them offstage and on.”

On the subject of the trio, Chiffon, Crystal, and Ronnette are historically played by black women to emulate the girl groups of the decade. MTI’s official casting descriptions of the roles clearly describe the trio as “African-American street urchins,” and many of their lines use AAVE. Something that was uncomfortable to watch was seeing these three roles be played by white women in Central’s production. Adding in the historical context of the appropriation of the black music scene in the 60s, the decision to not prioritize Central’s black student actors for some of the few roles written for them, especially in a still predominantly white theater scene in America, feels like another example of whitewashing in theater.

I wanted to talk to Central’s Drama department and hear things from their point of view before jumping to any conclusions. For Sierra Smith, the role of Chiffon wasn’t even one she was expecting or interested in, a few of the reasons being the black history behind the role, and that the urchins spoke AAVE for most of the show. “When we first began the production, I was definitely worried about how best to portray my character in the least offensive way possible.” Sierra explained. ”One way that helped was Mrs. Wilson allowing us to change lines using AAVE language if it would make us more comfortable.” The attempts in altering the language of the show for racial sensitivity were seconded by Isabel. “We tried to eliminate as much African Vernacular from our lines as possible.” she explained. “For example I had the line “Aw we ain’t bothering nobody” so we changed that to “Aw we aren’t bothering anybody,” Just little things like that. We definitely changed certain lyrics that were racist just in general, as Little Shop is a product of its time.”

Talking to Wilson also gave me further insight into how Central drama navigated the casting decisions. “If I was staging [the show] for the whole school, I would wish that I would have been able to have included [black women,] but since I was limited to [the students] I had in acting class, that’s kind of where I had to go.” Wilson explained. This brings up a fair point that acting class shows should prioritize the students taking the class when it comes to casting. Wilson went on further to say that the race of the characters weren’t necessarily set in stone. “Unlike some shows, I don’t think that these were written necessarily to have to be black characters.” Wilson said, but affirmed that the vernacular definitely implied such, hence the line changes to make sure “it didn’t feel like somebody was trying somebody else’s culture…And traditionally, the voice of the plant, Audrey II, is often done by a black man and there is again a lot of wording and riffs in that that would be attributed to somebody who is a black singer, especially from that era.” Wilson said. “I don’t think there was anything about the plant that said it has to be a black person who plays [it]. I do feel like some characters in musical theater clearly have to be somebody of certain cultures but I don’t feel like Little Shop [had] one of those roles.”

Central’s student body offered a mixed bag of opinions on these casting decisions. “It’s a little awkward, if you know the original show,” one anonymous source said. “But at the same time, if the [actors] are good at [portraying] their characters, then I guess it’s not so bad.” Others disagreed with that sentiment. “And first I didn’t have any reservations about it, I just kinda assumed that maybe they didn’t have enough people to even put black girls in there, I think that also comes from the lack of people of color in theater already.” drama department member Alex Curry said. “I appreciate that she tried to change some of the vernacular… and [the actresses] did a pretty good job. But I do remember there was a line that [was] said, where it was… improper English, but it was very purposeful improper English and when [it was said] it does kinda feel like [they’re] trying to imitate how some black people talk… I feel like they could have done another show. Little Shop is one of those shows where we need a broader cast, people of different colors and ethnicities and backgrounds.”

At the end of the day, the important thing is just to start discussions around these topics without immediately condemning or praising anyone, especially in high school settings. We need to speak up about diversity in various aspects of our lives, and listen to each other so we can all continue to better ourselves. I think Sierra said it best: “I think with shows that deal with race, or even those that don’t, it’s important to have discussions about how to remain respectful and well represent everyone from different backgrounds and cultures. I hope that moving forward Central Drama can continue to improve its diversity in terms of cast and crew.”

Overall, I really enjoyed Central’s rendition of Little Shop of Horrors, and I commend Central Drama for all the hard work they’ve done in their first year back from quarantine. The production also marked the final Central show performed at Centennial, a momentous occasion to be celebrated. “I’m really excited that we’ll have our own theater.” Wilson said. “It’s been a challenge, both for Centennial and for us to share a space… I was happy to have shared it, but I’m more happy that we don’t have to share anymore.”

The show was a campy and macabre party from start to finish, and it was wrapped up perfectly with silly string being shot into the audience. The characterization, the sets, and the heart behind all of it truly made May 14th a memorable night.