Little Shop of Horrors at CPT

Little Shop of Horrors is such a fun show and I loved seeing a fantastic production at CPT with my sisters and nephew last night. Seymour (Jake Heywood) and Audrey (Janae Klumpp-Gibb) both work in a run-down flower shop on Skid Row that the owner, Mr. Mushnik (Robert Gibbons), is thinking of closing because it has no customers. Seymour thinks that an unusual plant, which he found during a total eclipse of the sun, will bring more business to the shop. Because he cannot find it in any reference book, he names it Audrey II because he is secretly in love with his co-worker. The shop becomes wildly successful because of Audrey II but Mr. Mushnik is concerned because it isn't thriving. Seymour inadvertently discovers that Audrey II likes drinking his blood after he cuts himself on a thorn and, eventually, it grows to a giant size demanding more and more blood. When Seymour can't feed it any more of his blood, he feeds it the body of Audrey's boyfriend Orin Scrivello (Brock Dalgleish), a sadistic dentist who has had an unfortunate laughing gas accident, which wins him the love of Audrey but makes Audrey II even more insatiable. Seymour enjoys the notoriety Audrey II brings him but soon feels guilty about everything he has done to feed it. He decides to get rid of it but eventually he and Audrey succumb to Audrey II's evil plan for world domination! There is a girl group, including Crystal (Kortney King-Lives), Ronnette (Tory Sandoval), and Chiffon (Alexandria Bird), who narrate the show with music that is a mixture of rock and roll, doo-wop, and Motown and they sound amazing together. I also really loved Klumpp-Gibb's performance because she has a beautiful voice and her versions of "Somewhere That's Green" and "Suddenly Seymour" brought the house down. Heywood is awkwardly adorable in "Grow For Me" and Dalgleish is completely over the top in "Be A Dentist" but Austin Payne steals the show as the voice of Audrey II by singing the blues in "Feed Me (Git It)." All of the puppets used for Audrey II, which get bigger and bigger, are incredible and the way that they are manipulated by puppeteer Mitch Gibb is so much fun to watch! Finally, I loved the set which features a street on Skid Row with lots of really fun details (my favorite is the fire escape where the girls often appear). The exterior of Mushnik's Flower Shop opens up to reveal an interior that gets more elaborate as the show goes on, including more and more of Audrey II's tendrils which eventually reach out into the audience during "Finale Ultimo (Don't Feed the Plants)." The cute couple sitting next to me told me that I had a smile on my face during the whole show and I'm sure that I did because I had such a great time watching it. I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) during its run on the Mountain America Main Stage through October 14.