Opening Tonight: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS at Community Players

There's an interesting subset of the musical comedy world that puts horror, science fiction, rock and pop music together with a twisted sense of humor and oddball characters as well as various stripes of aliens, the undead, green slime, and the occasional leather jacket and motorcycle. Rocky Horror, Urinetown, Batboy, Evil Dead: The Musical, Zombie Prom...  There are a bunch of them, but one of the best-known examples of this phenomenon is Little Shop of Horrors.

Little Shop has a situation more recognizable than most, at least at first. Sweet, schlubby Seymour Krelborn slogs away in a low-rent flower shop on Skid Row, dreaming of the day he can get closer to Audrey, his lovely co-worker. Hard-luck Audrey frequently shows up for work with a black eye or broken bone, given to her by her sadistic boyfriend, Orin, a dentist with a real talent for causing pain. It's only when Seymour discovers a fabulous, extra-terrestrial plant during a solar eclipse -- a plant that's puny at first, but thrives once it's fed blood and parts of people -- that Seymour starts to turn around the fortunes of Mushnik's Skid Row Florist and impress Audrey, as well as get rid of the dentist threatening them both. When evil Orin becomes plant food and Audrey admits her love for Seymour, it's a win-win, right? Well, except for that hungry plant, still demanding to be fed.

The Little Shop score was written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, a duo you may know from the songs in Disney films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and it's every bit as delightful, bouncy and snarky as you might expect, with a soaring love song called "Suddenly Seymour;" a Motown-y girl group that serves as a Greek chorus singing about "Skid Row;" and the show's "I want" song, "Somewhere That's Green," about the suburban greenery Audrey envisions for herself far away from her real hard-scrabble life.

The Community Players' take on Little Shop of Horrors opens tonight with a preview where you are invited to pay whatever strikes your fancy, followed by performances at regular ticket prices March 11 and 12; 17, 18 and 19; and 24, 25 and 26 at 7:30 pm, and March 13 and 20 at 2:30 pm.

For Community Players, Chris Terven plays Seymour, while Aimee Kerber is his Audrey, Scott Myers is Mr. Mushnik, the owner of Skid Row Florists, Alex Knightwright plays Orin Scrivello DDS, and George Jackson III and Joe McCauley share responsibility for Audrey II, the bloodthirsty plant, with Jackson providing the voice and McCauley pulling its strings. Narrators Crystal, Chiffon and Ronnette are played (and sung) by Marita Landreth, Barbara Bouboutsis and Fania Bourn. Others in the ensemble include Wendi Ayers, Darlene Lloyd, Meghan McGuire, Bruce Parrish, Janel Scott, Erica Sommers and Liam Wheeler.

For more information, click here, or try this page if you are ready to buy tickets. You may also contact the Community Players box office at 309-663-2121.

Want to Work on a Community Players Show Next Season? Still Time to Apply!

Last month, Community Players made the big announcement of what they'll be putting on stage for their 2015-16 season. Next month -- March 2, to be exact -- is the deadline to send in a staff application if you're interested in playing a part backstage for one (or more) of those shows.

First, let's take a look at what's up in 2015-26.

Players will start off their fall season with the backstage farce Noises Off, a 1982 play by Michael Frayn.  Noises Off involves a hapless troupe of terrible players whose show only gets worse -- on and off-stage -- when they take it on the road. Players'  production is scheduled for performances from September 3 to 13, 2015.

Next up is the musical Legally Blonde, based on the popular Reese Witherspoon movie about a seemingly ditsy California sorority girl whose boyfriend dumps her for a smarter woman when he takes off for Harvard Law School. So the blonde decides to follow him to law school to get him back. Legally Blonde will hit Players on November 5 and stick around until the 22nd.

Turning the corner on the new year, it's time for The Crucible, Arthur Miller's version of the Salem witch trials, often considered an allegory of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950s, from January 14 to 24, 2016.

Little Shop of Horrors, the musical about a man-eating plant and a sweet flower store clerk named Seymour who tries to keep it supplied with people, is up in March, 2016. You may remember the original, non-musical Roger Corman movie from 1960, some of the more memorable songs from the stage musical, like the one about a sadistic dentist, the one where the plant demands "Feed Me, Seymour," or the pretty ballad another where Audrey, the girl Seymour wants, sings about finding "Somewhere That's Green." Look for Little Shop in performance from March 10 to 27, 2016.

Then there's the oldie but goodie thriller Dial M for Murder from May 5 to 15 and the musical about the wide-eyed comic strip orphan with the dog -- Annie -- July 8 to 24, 2016.

It's a pretty varied season, with a flat-out comedy, a flat-out drama, a scary mystery, and a trio of musicals that range from pink, pop and peppy (Legally Blonde) to a horror comedy with an ironic edge (Little Shop) and a show with a whole chorus of adorable orphans singing about their "Hard-knock Life" in Annie.

If one or more of those shows is just what you want to work on -- working on anything from costumes or props to lights, sound, set design or construction or run crew, or even directing or producing -- this is your chance to get your application in. You'll find the application here and more info about the process here.