Gallery Players is kicking off its 78th season with a plant that eats people, singing doo-wop backup vocalists, and a timid florist clerk whose life spirals out of control the moment he brings home something strange from the shop. The company's production of Little Shop of Horrors runs at the Roth/Resler Theater inside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Columbus at 1125 College Ave., with performances on October 10, 15, 17, 22 and 24 at 7 p.m. and October 11, 18 and 25 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $35.
The musical follows Seymour Krelborn, a mild-mannered florist clerk who discovers a peculiar flytrap-like plant and names it Audrey II, only to watch the plant reshape his life through love and fame, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The show has music by Alan Menken and book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, with a score drawing on doo-wop, early Motown and early 1960s rock'n'roll even as it depicts the effects of poverty-driven desperation and unchecked greed, per the same report.
Little Shop of Horrors is based on the 1960 comedy-horror cult film of the same name and was later adapted into a 1986 musical film starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia and Steve Martin, with Levi Stubbs providing the voice of Audrey II. The stage musical itself has a notable pedigree: Ashman and Menken's adaptation premiered Off-Off-Broadway at Manhattan's WPA Theatre in May 1982 before transferring to the Orpheum Theatre that July, where it ran for 2,209 performances over five years. Theatrecrafts.com details its dates and performance count, while Morbidly Beautiful describes it as the highest-grossing production in Off-Broadway history at the time of its 1987 closing.
From B-Movie Roots to Hollywood Budget Record
The story's origins trace back even further, to filmmaker Roger Corman's low-budget 1960 B-movie The Little Shop of Horrors, which Corman reportedly shot in two days and one night using leftover sets from his previous film A Bucket of Blood and featured a young Jack Nicholson in a minor role, as SlashFilm reports. Corman's cheap, campy original circulated on midnight-movie circuits, a scrappy origin story that stands in sharp contrast to what came next.
Director Frank Oz's 1986 film version carried a $25 million production budget, making it the most expensive film in Warner Bros. history at the time and surpassing the $18 million budget of Aliens, according to Morbidly Beautiful. The film went on to earn an estimated $40 million globally before achieving cult status on home video. Filming took place on the massive 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios in England, where cold indoor temperatures caused actors' breath to condense on camera during musical numbers, forcing them to hold ice cubes in their mouths before takes, per ScreenRant. Ellen Greene was the only original Off-Broadway cast member brought back for the film.
A Theater Born Out of Exclusion
Gallery Players has been part of Central Ohio's theater scene since at least 1972. The troupe is the longest continuously operating community theater company in Central Ohio.
The company's roster of alumni includes at least one nationally known name. Singer and pianist Michael Feinstein, who grew up in Columbus, appeared in the troupe's 1972 production of Fiddler on the Roof, according to the Great American Songbook Foundation. Feinstein was later voted Best Actor in high school before going on to become a renowned archivist and performer of the Great American Songbook.
A Packed Season, and a Packed October
This staging of Little Shop of Horrors brings the musical to the Roth/Resler Theater.
The production also marks the opener of a full 78th season for Gallery Players. The season features Little Shop of Horrors in October, Bye Bye Birdie in February and March 2027, and Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt in May 2027, per the Jewish Community Center of Greater Columbus. Tickets for Little Shop of Horrors are available at columbusjcc.org/gallery-players.
Gallery Players' October run arrives amid a busy autumn for horror-themed stage productions around Columbus, with Short North Stage mounting concurrent runs of Sweeney Todd and The Rocky Horror Show the same month, according to Experience Columbus.
