Little Shop of Horrors

Director's NOTE

Hello! Thank you so much for coming to the show today! The production of Little Shop of Horrors, that you’re about to see, features custom built puppets in the leading roles of Audrey, Seymour, Mr. Mushnik and Orin, in order to reflect our modern understanding that voices and souls are not pre-determined by the skins they reside in. I am very excited to introduce you to some wonderful young actors playing roles for which they might not traditionally be considered. In addition, the Seymour and Audrey puppets are built to require 2 actors a piece. This subdivision creates opportunities for very different actors to collaborate in the creation of one soul’s journey. 
Personally, I love puppets because I think it’s an incredibly human and beautiful thing, when we take time to breathe precious life into something that doesn’t innately possess it. This allows us to study life from the outside and maybe gain a greater understanding of what it is to live inside each other’s skins. When a puppet breathes, we notice breath in a new way and we maybe take it less for granted. 
But, perhaps more importantly than the opportunities our puppets create for young actors, they help convey what I feel is the greater message of Little Shop - that we’re all connected to, and responsible for, the things that happen in our world, in our time. I pick up the paper (or scroll through it) every day to see our politics deeply entangled in the strategic feeding of monsters, the naïve gambling that these monsters can be kept under control, and the blind denials that feeding monsters, does not mean complicity in their actions. 
What I hope we can think about today, through laughter and music and breathing the same air together here in this room, is that whether we’re actually feeding monsters, with blood or votes, or we’re keeping our heads down and staying silent, or we’re taking what we can from the situation for ourselves and our families, or we’re just watching with popcorn from the sidelines, this is our time on this earth and we all have to acknowledge our responsibility for what happens within it. Inaction is action, and neither can be taken back. — Billie Wildrick, Director