Wednesday, August 26, 2026

Beyond the Man-Eating Plant: Altadena Music Theatre Takes a Deeper Look at Little Shop of Horrors

By SUZANNE YORK

Following the sold-out success of Grease, Altadena Music Theatre returns with a darker, deeper and deliciously entertaining production of the beloved musical

What happens when ambition becomes more important than integrity? How much will someone sacrifice to escape poverty? And what happens when the thing that promises to save us becomes the very thing that destroys us?

Those questions lurk beneath the outrageous comedy, infectious music and man-eating plant at the center of Altadena Music Theatre’s production of Little Shop of Horrors, opening September 3 at Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena.

Directed by Altadena Music Theatre founder Sarah Azcarate, the production looks beyond the camp and comedy of Little Shop of Horrors to explore the darker psychological themes embedded in the musical: poverty, addiction, abuse, trauma, ambition, loneliness and the profound human desire to feel worthy.

After the company’s sold-out productions of Hair, Cabaret, Guys and Dolls and, most recently, Grease, Altadena Music Theatre continues its tradition of choosing material that entertains while also inviting audiences to look beneath the surface.

Little Shop of Horrors may be best known for Audrey II, the enormous carnivorous plant that sings, schemes and develops an appetite for human blood. But at its heart, the musical is a story about people who are hungry for something more.

A Faustian bargain with roots in loneliness

Seymour Krelborn, played by James Byous, is an outsider who has spent much of his life feeling invisible. When he discovers Audrey II, a 10-foot-tall puppet voiced and accompanied by actor Lord Kraven, his life begins to change.

The plant offers Seymour fame, money and the possibility of romantic success. But the price keeps rising.

What begins as a seemingly harmless solution to Seymour’s problems becomes a classic Faustian bargain. As Audrey II demands increasingly dangerous sacrifices, Seymour finds himself rationalizing choices that would once have been unthinkable.

The production invites audiences to see Audrey II as more than a fantastical man-eating plant. The character can also be understood as a metaphor for addiction: the intoxicating rush of success and attention, followed by an escalating demand for more.

The question becomes not simply whether Seymour can defeat the plant, but whether he can recognize what it is doing to him before it consumes everything he loves.

Audrey’s story is more than a comic subplot

That same psychological exploration extends to Audrey, played by Broadway veteran Ruby Lewis.

Lewis captures the character’s vulnerability, humor and heartbreaking longing. As she puts it, “Audrey has horrible taste in men.”

The line gets a laugh. But Azcarate’s production asks audiences to consider why.

Audrey’s relationship with the abusive dentist Orin Scrivello, played by Robert Manion, is not treated simply as comic caricature. Her poverty, low self-esteem and history of emotional neglect have shaped what she believes she deserves.

When Seymour offers her kindness, Audrey almost doesn’t know how to receive it.

Her dream of a suburban home, expressed in the beloved song “Somewhere That’s Green,” is therefore more than a comic fantasy. It is an aching vision of safety, stability and a life far removed from the poverty and violence of Skid Row.

In that sense, Audrey, Seymour and Audrey II form a kind of psychological triangle: Audrey represents vulnerability and the damage caused by internalized worthlessness; Seymour embodies loneliness, ambition and moral compromise; and Audrey II represents unchecked appetite and desire.

The result is a Little Shop that remains funny, irreverent and wildly entertaining while asking surprisingly difficult questions about how people respond when they are desperate to change their lives.

A musical score as diverse as its characters

Helping bring those layers to life is Music Director Chris Wade, who has served as Music Director for Altadena Music Theatre since its founding in 2020.

Wade has built a career as a music director, accompanist, arranger, producer, composer and vocal director, working in Los Angeles and New York. His background includes the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA)and Cal Lutheran University, as well as professional work in musical theater, television, concerts and live productions.

He has also served as a musical director and performer in productions connected with LACHSA and Cal State LA.

Wade’s experience is particularly well suited to Little Shop of Horrors. The celebrated score by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken moves through early rock, doo-wop, Motown, Broadway balladry and comic pastiche. Beneath the infectious melodies, however, the music carries the emotional lives of characters who are searching for love, security and a way out.

A production about rebuilding

There is an especially poignant dimension to this production for Altadena Music Theatre.

Many members of the Little Shop of Horrors cast and creative team lost homes and possessions in the Eaton Fire. The company itself lost its beloved performance home at the Charles S. Farnsworth Park Amphitheatre, while founders Sarah and Oliver Azcarate lost their own home.

Yet the company continued.

After the fire, Altadena Music Theatre mounted its recent production of Grease at a temporary outdoor venue at Mountain View Mausoleum. The production sold out, demonstrating the appetite for live theater, and the determination of an Altadena community rebuilding its cultural life.

Now Little Shop of Horrors continues that journey.

There is something fitting about a musical centered on a small plant that grows wildly beyond anyone’s expectations being staged by a theater company determined to grow again after devastation.

For Altadena Music Theatre, the production is not about ignoring darkness. It is about confronting it, finding humor and humanity within it, and continuing to create.

“Little Shop of Horrors” becomes, in that sense, more than a musical. It becomes another chapter in Altadena Music Theatre’s own story of survival, creativity and rising from the ashes.

Little Shop of Horrors will be presented Sept. 3-6 and Sept. 10-13 at 8 p.m. at Mountain View Mausoleum, 2300 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena. Ticket prices and parking information were not provided. For tickets, visit OvationTix; for more information, visit the Altadena Music Theatre website.