As the plant, rooted in the Mushnik floral shop, grew with each scene, so too did the performance’s effortless grab on the audience. With months of tireless work and preparation, the drama department welcomed the public to enjoy Little Shop of Horrors, based on the film by Roger Corman and screenplay by Charles Griffith.

“There’s a lot that goes into the play. A lot of exhaustion, tons of coffee, and lots of work. Before each performance, everyone backstage does an energy circle, where they get pumped up and motivated,” Steven Hirsch said, who works with staging and character development.

The play opens with Seymour, played by freshman Stephen Aderton, an uncoordinated, underappreciated orphan, who works at Mushnik Flower Shop. Mr. Mushnik, played by junior Harris Fitzgerel, is the obvious shop owner who mistreats Seymour and is desperate to find a solution to his failing business located on the neglected street of Skid Row.

However, in a turn of events, Seymour comes across a plant that, unbeknownst to him, is a man-eater. As the play unfolds, the audience watches as Seymour deals with his love interest, Audrey, played by junior Gwen Levey, Audrey’s abusive boyfriend Orin, played by junior James Barker, and the plant, voiced by junior Andrew Riddle and maneuvered by junior Paulina Stehr.

“The show was excellent! It went over really well. We had some illnesses, but there was no major problems. We always hope to get a large audience. There was about 175 people who came out, and we hoped for 500, so we need to get the word out better next time,” theater director George Bennett said.

The stage set, built to be a flower shop in the urban neighborhood of Skid Row, was meticulously constructed. The shop was backed by a cityscape background, and had all the elements of a vintage shop, finished off with vases of flowers on all the shelves. There was also a dentist’s office for Orin the dentist, which contained an actual vintage dentist chair, true to the time period.

“It took about six weeks to build and prepare the stage. Mr. Bennet goes out and buys all the set props and we figure out how it will come together,” sophomore Caleb Coffman, who works with the stage crew, said.

The performance overall seemed to respond well with the audience. The final performance night, on Saturday, brought a full house.

“It was great. The actors looked like they put a lot of work into it. James Barker was funny as the dentist and Gwen Levey’s voice was amazing,” sophomore Noah Wolfenstein said.