It turns out that two “Mean Green Mothers from Outer Space” will be landing Stateside this fall. Hot on the heels of a new Off Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors announced Monday, another staging has been confirmed even farther off Broadway, in the Los Angeles area.
The Pasadena Playhouse is launching a production of the Howard Ashman-Alan Menken musical in September. George Salazar (of Broadway’s Be More Chill) will star as leading man Seymour, with Pose’s Mj Rodriguez as Seymour’s co-worker and romantic interest Audrey. Glee star Amber Riley will provide the voice of man-eating plant Audrey II.
The L.A. production will open one month ahead of New York’s (which stars Riley’s fellow Glee alum Jonathan Groff), beginning Sept. 17 and running until Oct. 20. According to a press release, the show will feature some new twists on the classic musical, including a new puppet concept for Audrey II, and “a whole new take” on the principal setting of Skid Row.
Little Shop follows an impoverished, unlucky florist (Seymour) who discovers an alien plant possessing an insatiable appetite for human flesh. Ashman and Menken’s songs pay homage to early rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, and Motown, and predate the pair’s iconic work on Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. The show first opened Off Off Broadway in 1982, with later productions on Broadway and the West End, as well as a 1986 film adaptation.
Tickets for the Pasadena Playhouse production are on sale now.
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