Why 'Little Shop of Horrors' is the perfect musical for first-timers

Cast members and famous guests at the show's 1,500th performance discussed encountering the show for the first time at all stages of their theatre careers.

Every theatre fan has their "gateway musical": the one that ignited their interest in the art form. The most common gateway musicals have scores full of earworms and stories that appeal to a broad age range — think current Broadway blockbusters like Wicked, Six, and Hamilton.

Another popular example, blossoming off Broadway since 2019 in a critically acclaimed revival, is Little Shop of Horrors, adapted from the 1960 B-movie about a flower shop worker named Seymour who grows a flesh-eating, talking plant. The horror comedy, adapted as a musical by acclaimed Disney writers Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, sees Seymour do the plant's bloody bidding in exchange for the love of his beautiful coworker, Audrey.

The over-the-top humor and sweet love story of Little Shop make the show a fixture of high school and community theatre programs, so countless Broadway professionals and fans alike discover it early on.

Social media star Trisha Paytas, for one, first saw a local production in Byron, Illinois, at 7 years old. "My mom played Audrey," Paytas told New York Theatre Guide at a celebration of the Off-Broadway revival's 1,500th performance on December 8, 2024. "I watched her go into the plant and I cried, but I thought she was so glamorous."

Weston Chandler Long, a puppeteer in the current revival, saw a high school production at age 12 — "I thought it was the most bizarre, hilarious, insane show ever," he said — while Melissa Victor, an understudy in the revival, fought with three of her fellow students over a solo in a high school production of her own.

Major Attaway, who currently voices the plant, Audrey II, has both boxes checked: "The first time I ever experienced Little Shop of Horrors was probably in middle school, and the first time I ever performed the show was definitely in high school," he recalled. In school and in two other productions since, he played the same role as off Broadway.

"If you had asked me as a young person what my ideal job would be in New York City, it would definitely be being in Little Shop of Horrors as an adult," Attaway added.

That's not to say every performer has a Little Shop memory from their youth, so no shame if you don't, either. Nicholas Christopher, who plays Seymour off Broadway through February 23, had never experienced the show until he was offered the part last year.

"It's been a beautiful journey to be on, to come at it anew," Christopher said. "Once I got the part, I went to go see the show, and I was like, 'Oh my god, it's fantastic.'"

Broadway performer Amber Ardolino had a similar experience: Her first exposure to Little Shop was attending the 1,500th performance. "I went in very blind [...] and now I'm coming back. This is one of my new favorite musicals I've ever seen." And 42 years earlier, in 1982, producer Tom Kirdahy saw a poster advertising Little Shop's first Off-Broadway production and gave it a shot.

"I became obsessed," he said. "I have very fond early memories of the original production, and that fed my desire to mount this revival."

Even the puppeteer Long, despite having seen the show as a kid, said he didn't fully appreciate it until a few years ago. "I saw the final performance of this production before the Covid shutdown, before I was ever involved," he said. "It had been so long since I experienced the piece, and it was such a masterful piece of art that it just absolutely floored me."

The unabashedly larger-than-life story and old-school Broadway score are among the timeless elements that have hooked these artists at all stages of life, and the rotating lineup of big-name talent in the lead roles of this revival are an added bonus for theatregoers. So whether you have a long-blossoming love of musicals or are fairly green, the doors of Little Shop of Horrors are wide open for you. And so are Audrey II's jaws.

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Photo credit: Little Shop of Horrors off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)