The 1982 horror comedy — about a man-eating plant from Outer Space on New York's Skid Row — a good fit for new space
When the campy horror musical comedy “Little Shop of Horrors” premiered in 1982, it started out in a tiny off-off Broadway studio. Then it ran for five years at the 299-seat Orpheum theater off Broadway, where it built a loyal audience of repeat customers.
SDMT gave up its lease on the Horton Grand Theatre in the Gaslamp Quarter during the pandemic and reopened this past February in a former Tupperware warehouse on Mercury Street. The downside of the much-smaller space is that it’s not big enough to accommodate a live orchestra. But the upside is that lower production costs allows SDMT to run its shows longer and build ticket sales through word of mouth — which this powerfully sung “Little Shop” should do.
But SDMT’s “Little Shop” director, Kandace Crystal, wanted to create a production that not only reflects the diversity of San Diego’s population but also the reality of the characters’ struggles on New York’s Skid Row in the 1960s. This show’s cast is racially diverse, the trio of doo-wop singing “urchins” are more streetwise, the central characters are less caricatured than usual and Janet Pitcher’s costumes aren’t as incongruously glamorous.
Ramiro Garcia Jr., seen just last spring at SDMT as the Piragua Guy in “In the Heights,” gives a sensitive, heartfelt and believably conflicted performance as Seymour, the impoverished flower shop clerk whose fortunes change when he adopts a mysterious fast-growing plant with a thirst for human blood. Big-voiced Lena Ceja, who was Daniela in “In the Heights,” tenderly and believably plays Audrey as a fragile and self-loathing domestic abuse victim.
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