By: Victoria Roach
Hardin-Simmons University Theatre Department opened its first performance of the 2020-2021 season with Little Shop of Horrors. This is a musical about a flower shop and its workers down on Skid Row that brought a much needed energy boost to the HSU campus in the middle of the ongoing pandemic.
Little Shop of Horrors follows Seymour, a geeky worker at Mushnik’s Flower Shop, his coworker Audrey, and Seymour’s blood-hungry Venus flytrap-like plant, Audrey II. Seymour reaches semi-fame and glory as he also pursues the love of his coworker, Audrey, who believes she is undeserving of a good guy and wants nothing more than to live life in a little subdivision somewhere that is green.
Seymour shows off his new plant to Audrey and the owner of the flower shop, Mr. Mushnik, hoping that this plant could save the shop from closing. Because of this unusual plant sitting in the window, the shop remains open with Audrey II bringing in lots of new business. Though the plant creates such success for the shop, its preference of food remains a dark, disturbing secret.
The plant promises great things for Seymour, even the love of his coworker Audrey, but the price of that love is feeding the plant humans. One human is not enough for Audrey II though, and after the first payment from Seymour the plant is constantly hungry for more.
The choreography and singing in the show were excellent, no doubt a tribute to the amount of work and dedication that everyone involved in the show had obviously expended.. The Hardin-Simmons Theatre Department did a great job incorporating so many working and moving pieces into this show such as the lighted sign above the shop after Audrey II is discovered and the moving limbs and roots of the blood thirsty plant.
The show was a great way to start the new school year of uncertainties, but one thing is for certain: the HSU Theatre Department put their best foot forward in reminding us to thrive and strive to be somewhere that’s green.
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