Little Shop of Horrors is a 1982 stage musical adaptation based on the 1960 non-musical Roger Corman film of the same name about a plant that not only has a taste for human blood but also has plans to take over the world. The musical was created by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, who later went on to write songs for Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.
The tone of Shop is black comedy which gently pokes fun at the sci-fi movies of the 1950s. The plant in question – the Audrey II – arrives on Earth during an unexpected total eclipse of the sun and changes the life of hapless shop worker Seymour Krelbourn (Matthew Hale) forever. The musical score, composed by Menken in the style of 1960's rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes several show-stoppers including Skid Row (Downtown), Somewhere That's Green, and Suddenly Seymour, as well as the title song. The musical is set in Skid Row in New York. Seymour is a geeky guy who works in Mr Mushnik’s (Brian Sealy) very unsuccessful flowershop alongside “tart with a heart” Audrey (Kath Ryan) after whom Seymour names his strange and unusual plant. Audrey’s taste in men is nearly as bad as her taste in clothes. When the show opens she is dating a sadistic dentist (Rob Archibald), whose nasty ways make him an ideal candidate to become plant food. The musical also features a Greek chorus of female street urchins named Crystal, Chiffon and Ronnette, (Camilla McDonald, Samantha Kriegel and Moe Moss, respectively) named after famous 1960s girl groups, who keep the audience apace with the story through songs.
The musical had its world premiere off-Broadway in 1982 and won several awards including the 1982-1983 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the London Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. When it closed, after 2,209 performances, it was the third-longest running musical and the highest-grossing production in off-Broadway history.