Set in a Failing Floral Shop, the Little Shop of Horrors by Howard Ashman

Little Shop of Horrors is a comedy musical written by Howard Ashman and composed by Alan Menken. It follows the story of a failing floral shop, Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, in the midst of an extremely poor and under thriving Skid Row. In the middle of the owner and employees lamenting over their misfortunes of no costumers and the woes of living on Skid Row, the owner, Mr. Mushnik, decides to close down the shop. Upon hearing this, an employee, Seymour Krelborn, unveils a plant he has been working on that is supposedly exactly what the shop needs to resurface into business. The plant looks like a large venus fly trap and Seymour names it Audrey II after his fellow employee, Audrey, with whom he is secretly in love with. They place it in the shop’s window and immediately customers enter and purchase a lot of the shop’s merchandise. Upon seeing the success of this newfound plant, Mr. Mushnik instructs Seymour to nurse the plant to health, since the plant is not doing well in this environment. While Seymour attends to this task, he accidentally pricks his finger on a rose thorn of the plant, and at the taste of the blood, the plant swells to life. Once this happens, Seymour realizes that his plant requires blood in order to remain alive. He then continues to allow it to draw blood from his finger. Audrey II becomes a major attraction for the floral shop and customers continue to stream in in large quantities and business thrives. Seymour turns from loser to hero with his new addition to the shop and his secret crush Audrey leaves her abusive boyfriend, Orin Scrivello, in order to confess her love for Seymour. While the shop continues to flourish, they begin renovations with the increased renovations they are receiving. Orin Scrive...

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... of the floral shop at the beginning of the play, I would have the stage set with very minimal set pieces to emphasize the absence of wealth. I would have a very apparent clock in the opening scene to emphasize the time slowly ticking by. I think that the emphasis should be on the plant and on the characters, not on an elaborate store or set pieces on the stage. The main set piece should be the elaboration of the plant as it grows and thrives. Nothing should take away from this. I think that the absence of unnecessary props will allow the audience members to interpret the underdevelopment of Skid Row and also concentrate on the development of the plot and the character changes, especially in the case of Seymour and Audrey as they begin their relationship, which will cause the ending scene to be all the more dramatic when they both die at the hands of Audrey II.