The Very Big Little Shop of Horrors

Contra Costa Musical Theatre is bringing a very big Little Shop of Horrors to Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts.

Opening on the Hofmann stage on Friday, Oct. 14, the production is anything but “little.”

“The shop itself is a humongous piece. It’s a beast,” director Jasen Jeffrey said, in an interview during tech week.

The five- to seven-day tech period — when sets, lighting, costumes, actors, and musicians come together for final rehearsals — is always a nail-biter.

“We were able to get everything on stage!” Jeffrey announced, as if this, in and of itself, is a crowning achievement. “The shop is very heavy and requires a lot of muscle to move. And Audrey II is over six feet tall when it’s sitting, so it’s a workout.”

It all sounds fantastical, and it is.

The musical is based on Roger Corman’s 1960 cult film about a forlorn flower shop worker who raises Audrey, a plant, into Audrey II, a blood-thirsty, R&B-belting carnivore.

The original off-Broadway production was turned into a 1986 film starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene and Steve Martin. A 2003 Broadway revival toured for two years. CCMT’s rendition will showcase its sets, costumes and puppetry.

“We rented the whole package,” Jeffrey said proudly, adding that the story will stay true to the original show, unlike the film.

“In general, any time Hollywood turns a musical into a movie, they leave out important details that make it complex. They give it a happy ending. It’s a dark comedy that ends unfavorably to all the main characters. I don’t want to give away everything, but the plant wins.”

The plant is not only victorious in CCMT’s musical, it’s multi-cast.

The first Audrey II is seen on an actor holding the wilting puppet. The second one is a dancing, singing actor wearing the costume. The third version is a full body puppet, with a manipulator seated inside who drives the pod feature that moves its enormous tongue (licking its mobile lips). The fourth variation is the over-six-footer who Jeffrey refused to describe in detail.

“It’s a secret, but I can tell you there’s a harness and bars involved,” he laughed.

Beyond the humor, there’s expanded orchestration.

“We’ve added horns, sax, flutes, trumpets and twice as much auxiliary percussion to the original four-piece band,” Jeffrey explained.

In addition to filling the large house with a powerful sound, the increased instrumentation allowed Jeffrey to support the Yiddish background of a central character and capitalize on a primary directorial goal.

“I have to bring out the mental issues that Seymour experiences and the abuse that Audrey has to undergo. The characters are written as caricatures, so I had to work with the actors to really believe in the realism of the story. If you tap into How is this real? How is this pertinent to our daily lives?, you get more colors and depth.”

The fear factor, especially for children under the age of 10, is an element the director takes seriously.

“I’m not going to cherry-coat it,” he said. “It’s not for the faint of heart. On top of the plant eating people, there are realistic moments of pain and human suffering.”

For parents, his suggestion is to first see the show without the kids to determine if the heavier scenes and what producer Scott Strain refers to as “humongous puppets” will be overwhelming.

But for everyone else, when a show has compassion, true love, and acceptance — plus a twist of absurdity — Jeffrey believes the result is irresistible.

“You’ll be laughing, squirming and crying – and that’s just in the first act!” he exclaimed.