The Nocturne Theatre and Little Shop Of Horrors prove to be a match made in musical comedy heaven as Glendale’s signature theater-in-the-round puts its own quirky, kooky, all-around fabulous stamp on the one-of-a-kind off-Broadway-to-Broadway horror musical classic.

Spoofing such 1950s B-movie horror flicks as Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Creature From The Black Lagoon, and It Came From Outer Space, not to forget the 1960 black-and-white, non-musical sci-fi comedy of the same name on which it is based, Little Shop Of Horrors introduces us to orphan Seymour Krelborn (Aaron Ellis), longtime clerk at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, the crummiest and least successful flower shop in town … but perhaps not for too much longer, given how pitiful business is of late.

Fortunately for Seymour and his curvaceous coworker Audrey (Jett LaFever), the first customer they’ve had in days is so charmed and fascinated by the “strange and interesting plant” sitting in the store window (one that Seymour just happened to find soon after a total eclipse of the sun and quickly named Audrey II) that he buys $100 worth of roses, and before long, business is booming.

 Not only that, but the shop’s cranky owner Mr. Mushnik (Craig Sherman) is thinking of adopting Seymour, the latter is finding it harder and harder to think of the lovely Audrey as a mere work colleague, and Audrey is wondering if Seymour might just be the knight in nerd’s armor who can rescue her from her physically abusive dentist boyfriend Orin Scrivello D.D.S. (Conner Bullock).

There’s just one problem with Audrey II. It has a craving for blood, human blood, and the drops Seymour provides from his increasingly ravaged fingers are soon nowhere near enough to satisfy its cravings. Audrey II wants a body’s worth of blood, and it wants Seymour to supply it posthaste.

As in their later Disney collaborations The Little Mermaid and Beauty And The Beast, composer Menken and book writer/lyricist Ashman display a knack for creating one instantly hummable, cleverly worded song after another.

All of this comes together on the Nocturne Theatre’s arena stage where director Justin Meyer brings to exhilarating life a musical whose movie adaptation he grew up watching.

To begin with, by costuming the musical’s girl-group Urchins (Dara Adedara as Crystal, Cameron Jackson as Chiffon, and Auriana Chisholm as Ronnette) in a series of matching outfits from 1960s-style stewardesses to white-uniformed dental technicians to Dreamgirls-style glamour girls, Meyer makes it clear that he has reconceived the power-piped trioas something more than just three local high school dropouts commenting on the action in song. (Major kudos to designer Tanya Cyr for these costumes and dozens more.)

And having a grown-up (and grown-huge) Audrey II transformed into a creature resembling nothing other than Godzilla in plant form gives Meyer’s take on the monster plant unlike any other I’ve seen, and I’ve now seen fifteen Little Shops in all. (Cyr does dynamic double duty designing this and every other puppet too.)

 Add to this Melissa Meyer and Ernie Peiffer’s delightful choreography (special snaps to the girl group moves), Jay Michael Roberts’s ingenious in-the-round scenic design, and (Justin) Meyer’s dramatic saturated lighting and you’ve got a Little Shop with a decidedly Nocturne look and feel.

Still, no Little Shop Of Horrors can succeed without a cast up the challenge of making one iconic role after another seem fresh and new, and here too the Nocturne Theatre’s Little Shop hits multiple bulls-eyes.

Ellis’s instantly likeable Seymour is so awkwardly, adorably nerdy that the great-big Broadway vocals he brings to the role are a stunning surprise, and he couldn’t ask for a more fabulous Audrey than LaFever, whose perfectly pulchritudinous curves are matched by her adorably touching take on the role and her own powerhouse pipes.

The Nocturne favorite Bullock once again reveals himself to be one of the past couple year’s major musical theater discoveries, this time round as a dentist as sexy as he is sadistic (and several deliciously rendered cameos as well).

Sherman steals plenty of scenes too as a character whose ingratiatingly avuncular exterior might not be what you find when you dig a little deeper, and the three-times sassy Adedara, Chisholm, and Jackson give every single 1960s girl group a run for their money where high-powered harmonies are concerned.

Bedjou Jean, Darius Aaron Frye, and David Gallic play assorted cameo roles to delightful effect before Frye turns skilled puppeteer inside Audrey II and Gallic voices her to do movie AII Levi Stubbs (of the Four Tops fame) proud.

Last but not least, Nolan Monsibay’s music direction and sound engineer Matt Merline’s mix of live vocals and prerecorded tracks are both Grade-A.

Micah Delhauer is assistant lighting designer and stage manager. Greg Feiler is creature builder. Brittany Archambeault is assistant scenic designer. Casting is by Meyer2Meyer Entertainment. Braydon Hade is casting assistant.

Over the past sixteen months, no local musical theater has offered audiences as stunning a mix of quality and quantity as The Nocturne Theatre. Their Little Shop Of Horrors is wildly and wonderfully one of a kind.

The Nocturne Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale. Through March 23. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 1:30. Also Thursdays April 17 and May 1 at 7:30 and Wednesday April 23 at 7:30
www.TheNocturneTheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
April 11, 2025
Photos: The Nocturne Theatre

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Tags: Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Nocturne Theatre