The Little Shop of Horrors showcase starring junior Andrew Tran, senior Paige Robertson and sophomore Kiavonni Acreneaux as Seymour Krelborn, Audrey and Audrey II began Thursday, Oct. 17.  The musical revolves around a plant that can only feed off of human blood and flesh, it ends up getting out of hand when it’s put in the display window of a flower shop. The performance took weeks to prepare for and cast mates had to work and collaborate to make the execution just right. There were critical moments for the cast like stage slaps, a stage kiss and the trial of love between friends. 

“I prepped by looking at each scene I was in and what my character was feeling,” Robertson said. “I talked to my scene partners a lot to see how they were feeling to connect with them so that we could all be on the same page.”

The cast did many run-throughs and focused on character reflection to prepare for the performance, but they still had parts they tried their best to perfect. 

“The stage slap was difficult because it was tough to line up with the music and we worked hard to get it lined up,” Robertson said. “Still, we had a lot of trouble executing it.”

Even though the cast had their trials with the music lineup, the main characters favored their roles very much. Acreneaux enjoyed sharing stage comedy with Seymour and the audience the most. 

“I loved the comedy between Seymour and Audrey II,” Acreneaux said. “There’s this one scene where Seymour says ‘What do you want me to do, slit my wrists?’ and Audrey II says ‘Mmm that sounds nice.’” 

This play had its gruesome, grisly detailed but was overall very emotional for the cast through the love story that’s portrayed. 

“Audrey is asking Seymour to feed her to Audrey II so that she can bring him all of the wonderful things he wants, if Seymour fed Audrey II humans and blood she would give him fame and fortune and she was understanding of his desires,” Robertson said. “She saw that Seymour liked Audrey and asked ‘Won’t you do anything to get her?’ and Seymour said yes, so he started doing all these things to get to Audrey.”

Audrey II exploited Seymour’s desires and almost killed Audrey. Seymour saved her, but she felt she was dying and suggested being fed to the plant. The story highlights their deep bond and ends tragically.

“I thought the cast was talented and did an exceptional job of creating emotion on the stage,” Erin Balfour said. “There was a great rapport between cast members. They were engaging and really talented, and it was so fun to get to watch them do what they love at such a high level.”