The world may feel like it’s ending, but at least in Denver, it’s happening with doo-wop harmonies, killer vocals and a man-eating plant that knows how to put on a show.
“I think we’re all hungry for joy,” says Chris Coleman, director of Little Shop of Horrors and artistic director of the DCPA. “We’re all still trying to figure out what a future looks like when forces that seem like they could end civilization are coming after us. But this show lets us laugh — and maybe take away something deeper.”
That tension between laughter and looming doom is exactly what makes Little Shop such a delicious paradox. And in the DCPA Theatre Company's production in its Wolf Theatre, which has been playing to packed previews ahead of its official opening on Friday, April 18, it’s handled with humor, heart and, of course, a little horror too!
Little Shop is the kind of musical that feels both timeless and weirdly perfect for 2025 — silly on the surface, deeply smart underneath and featuring an absurd riff on a Faustian bargain that hits uncomfortably close to home. First staged off-Broadway in 1982 with a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken, Little Shop is based on a scrappy 1960 Roger Corman horror movie shot in two days. The original film was beloved by Ashman for its B-movie charm and low-budget weirdness, but he transformed it into something smarter, catchier and much more tuneful.
"I joked at the first rehearsal that the plant in that film looks like I made it for $1.57. It's so cheesy," Coleman says. "I don't think it is very funny, but Howard Ashman, when he was around fourteen, thought it was the wittiest thing he'd ever seen. Then he realized if you still think [the film] is funny as an adult, you have no taste, but he still loved the story. Someone once told me that if you really want to understand an adaptation, then you need to look at how the thing is changed from its source material. The musical is far funnier than the original film and features a score of doo-wop and early 60s rock."
The plot centers on Seymour Krelborn, a meek floral assistant working at a rundown shop on Skid Row. He’s in love with his co-worker Audrey, who’s stuck in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist. Things take a turn when Seymour discovers a strange new plant that he names Audrey II. The plant brings him fame, fortune and a shot at love — but there’s a catch. Audrey II feeds on blood. And it’s hungry.
With its infectious score, dark satire and one of the most unforgettable puppets in musical theater history, Little Shop became an instant cult classic. Songs like “Suddenly, Seymour,” “Somewhere That’s Green” and the gospel-tinged “Skid Row (Downtown)” have remained staples in the musical theater canon for good reason — they’re catchy, heartfelt and narratively precise.
"The musical follows people who are down and out, don't fit in and don't believe in themselves but who are longing for a way out," Coleman says. "It's a classic setup, but he's so smart in building the kind of structure of needs of the characters in the play that everything delivers and everything holds together. Each song has a very clear dramatic function, and then, sometimes, a callback later that's very satisfying."
Helmed by Coleman, this Little Shop doesn’t just aim to entertain. It’s a lovingly built production that digs deep into the musical’s core themes — ambition, desire, complicity — and packages them in a tight, candy-colored, slightly bloodstained bow.
“When we were thinking about seasons, I always consider what we haven’t offered our audience over the last couple of years," he says. "The last couple of musicals we've done were Rattlesnake Kate, The Color Purple and A Little Night Music, which were all gorgeous but more serious. I thought we needed to do something silly and it didn't hurt in these budgetarily challenging times that it's a smaller property with a big title."
But while the script may be tight and the score catchy, translating Little Shop to the DCPA’s 610-seat thrust stage required some creative problem-solving. “Designing this show is interesting because it started in a 99-seat theater,” Coleman explains. “How do you express the intimacy of that shop, the crowdedness of that shop, in a space this large? And how do you make sure the plant actually takes over the space as it grows?”
Set designer Alan E. Muraoka’s solution: ground the production firmly in a gritty, Lower Manhattan underpass, with the flower shop rolling forward and back on a massive wagon, shifting fluidly between street corners and interior scenes.
“The shop lives on a big unit that allows us to always land scenes in what I call the Wolf’s power positions,” Coleman says. “That becomes especially important when the plant starts getting really, really big.”
And the plant does get big — both physically and metaphorically. The largest Audrey II puppet is, by all accounts, massive, and syncing its movements with the actor voicing it (Aaron Michael Ray) and the puppeteer (Joe Gallina) requires split-second timing.
“Timing everything is tricky,” Coleman admits. “The puppet, when it gets to the largest version of it, is giant and heavy. It's not deft, so it’s fun to figure out how to try and convince the audience that he is doing what you need him to do."
Equally important to the show’s success is casting. “Seymour and Audrey are wounded humans,” Coleman says. “Finding the zone where that feels truthful and funny was a bit more elusive than I anticipated. A lot of the Audreys would come in, and they were just too aggressive and contemporary. It's like, ‘No, this is a woman who really struggled in her life and her survival mechanism is to appease and please,’ but I feel like the folks that we landed with are just dynamite."
Coleman eventually landed on Broadway veterans Ben Fankhauser as Seymour and Gizel Jiménez as Audrey. But finding the right actor to play Orin — the sadistic dentist who also doubles as all of the show's additional characters — proved to be a different kind of challenge. Enter Will Branner.
"If I had somebody who wasn't naturally a clown playing Orin, it would be really hard to kind of help them figure that out," Coleman says. "But he's just like Jim Carrey. He's a goofball who will do it eighteen different ways in rehearsal. I just try to carve a path for him and focus the performance."
Best known for playing Biff in Broadway’s Back to the Future and for his viral role in Team Starkid’s Nerdy Prudes Must Die, Branner delivers a wild, high-octane performance as the unhinged dentist. “This is definitely one of the most physical productions I've ever done,” Branner says. “One of my costume changes is twenty-five seconds long. It’s been a fun challenge figuring out how to switch characters that quickly.”
Branner, a self-professed comedy nerd raised on Carrey and Steve Martin, says he’s always had Little Shop on his dream-show list. “When I first watched the film as a kid, I appreciated all the comedy," he says. "There are many powerful themes that just went over my head as a kid. I used to laugh at the plants, but now I realize they were trying to say something about resisting the temptation of power. They had a message to bring you, and they did."
To keep things grounded, the cast began rehearsals by working backward from the end of the show, assigning “headlines” to each section — emotional signposts that keep them tethered to the stakes, even in the most outrageous moments.
“That helped us focus,” Branner says. “We’re playing in a heightened world, but the emotions are real." Coleman agrees. “I've seen clips of other productions where the actors are elbowing you in the ribs so much that it doesn’t work," he says. "There's so much heart in these characters, and that's why you stay emotionally invested amid the comedy."
Despite the camp, the carnage and the rocking numbers, Coleman and company are leaning into the show’s sincere core. Seymour wants love. Audrey wants safety. And both are tempted to make dark bargains to get what they want.
"Audiences can experience Little Shop of Horrors on multiple levels," Coleman says. "You can just come and enjoy the yuks and the wonderful music. Or you could take away something a little deeper. Don't sell your soul — that's what they're writing about."
Little Shop of Horrors began previews Friday, April 11, opens Friday, April 18, and runs through Sunday, May 25 in the Wolf Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Tickets are $47 to $130. Learn more at denvercenter.org.
“I think we’re all hungry for joy,” says Chris Coleman, director of Little Shop of Horrors and artistic director of the DCPA. “We’re all still trying to figure out what a future looks like when forces that seem like they could end civilization are coming after us. But this show lets us laugh — and maybe take away something deeper.”
That tension between laughter and looming doom is exactly what makes Little Shop such a delicious paradox. And in the DCPA Theatre Company's production in its Wolf Theatre, which has been playing to packed previews ahead of its official opening on Friday, April 18, it’s handled with humor, heart and, of course, a little horror too!
Little Shop is the kind of musical that feels both timeless and weirdly perfect for 2025 — silly on the surface, deeply smart underneath and featuring an absurd riff on a Faustian bargain that hits uncomfortably close to home. First staged off-Broadway in 1982 with a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken, Little Shop is based on a scrappy 1960 Roger Corman horror movie shot in two days. The original film was beloved by Ashman for its B-movie charm and low-budget weirdness, but he transformed it into something smarter, catchier and much more tuneful.
"I joked at the first rehearsal that the plant in that film looks like I made it for $1.57. It's so cheesy," Coleman says. "I don't think it is very funny, but Howard Ashman, when he was around fourteen, thought it was the wittiest thing he'd ever seen. Then he realized if you still think [the film] is funny as an adult, you have no taste, but he still loved the story. Someone once told me that if you really want to understand an adaptation, then you need to look at how the thing is changed from its source material. The musical is far funnier than the original film and features a score of doo-wop and early 60s rock."
The plot centers on Seymour Krelborn, a meek floral assistant working at a rundown shop on Skid Row. He’s in love with his co-worker Audrey, who’s stuck in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist. Things take a turn when Seymour discovers a strange new plant that he names Audrey II. The plant brings him fame, fortune and a shot at love — but there’s a catch. Audrey II feeds on blood. And it’s hungry.
With its infectious score, dark satire and one of the most unforgettable puppets in musical theater history, Little Shop became an instant cult classic. Songs like “Suddenly, Seymour,” “Somewhere That’s Green” and the gospel-tinged “Skid Row (Downtown)” have remained staples in the musical theater canon for good reason — they’re catchy, heartfelt and narratively precise.
"The musical follows people who are down and out, don't fit in and don't believe in themselves but who are longing for a way out," Coleman says. "It's a classic setup, but he's so smart in building the kind of structure of needs of the characters in the play that everything delivers and everything holds together. Each song has a very clear dramatic function, and then, sometimes, a callback later that's very satisfying."
The Urchins and Seymour stand in the flower shop, while Audrey II looms in the background.
Courtesy of Jamie Kraus Photography
“When we were thinking about seasons, I always consider what we haven’t offered our audience over the last couple of years," he says. "The last couple of musicals we've done were Rattlesnake Kate, The Color Purple and A Little Night Music, which were all gorgeous but more serious. I thought we needed to do something silly and it didn't hurt in these budgetarily challenging times that it's a smaller property with a big title."
But while the script may be tight and the score catchy, translating Little Shop to the DCPA’s 610-seat thrust stage required some creative problem-solving. “Designing this show is interesting because it started in a 99-seat theater,” Coleman explains. “How do you express the intimacy of that shop, the crowdedness of that shop, in a space this large? And how do you make sure the plant actually takes over the space as it grows?”
Set designer Alan E. Muraoka’s solution: ground the production firmly in a gritty, Lower Manhattan underpass, with the flower shop rolling forward and back on a massive wagon, shifting fluidly between street corners and interior scenes.
“The shop lives on a big unit that allows us to always land scenes in what I call the Wolf’s power positions,” Coleman says. “That becomes especially important when the plant starts getting really, really big.”
And the plant does get big — both physically and metaphorically. The largest Audrey II puppet is, by all accounts, massive, and syncing its movements with the actor voicing it (Aaron Michael Ray) and the puppeteer (Joe Gallina) requires split-second timing.
“Timing everything is tricky,” Coleman admits. “The puppet, when it gets to the largest version of it, is giant and heavy. It's not deft, so it’s fun to figure out how to try and convince the audience that he is doing what you need him to do."
Audrey, played by Gizel Jiménez, stands in front of the sinister Audrey II in the DCPA's Little Shop of Horrors.
Courtesy of Jamie Kraus Photography
Coleman eventually landed on Broadway veterans Ben Fankhauser as Seymour and Gizel Jiménez as Audrey. But finding the right actor to play Orin — the sadistic dentist who also doubles as all of the show's additional characters — proved to be a different kind of challenge. Enter Will Branner.
Will Branner plays Orin, a sadistic dentist, opposite Ben Fankhauser as Seymour, a meek floral assistant who turns to murder.
Courtesy of Jamie Kraus Photography
Best known for playing Biff in Broadway’s Back to the Future and for his viral role in Team Starkid’s Nerdy Prudes Must Die, Branner delivers a wild, high-octane performance as the unhinged dentist. “This is definitely one of the most physical productions I've ever done,” Branner says. “One of my costume changes is twenty-five seconds long. It’s been a fun challenge figuring out how to switch characters that quickly.”
Branner, a self-professed comedy nerd raised on Carrey and Steve Martin, says he’s always had Little Shop on his dream-show list. “When I first watched the film as a kid, I appreciated all the comedy," he says. "There are many powerful themes that just went over my head as a kid. I used to laugh at the plants, but now I realize they were trying to say something about resisting the temptation of power. They had a message to bring you, and they did."
To keep things grounded, the cast began rehearsals by working backward from the end of the show, assigning “headlines” to each section — emotional signposts that keep them tethered to the stakes, even in the most outrageous moments.
“That helped us focus,” Branner says. “We’re playing in a heightened world, but the emotions are real." Coleman agrees. “I've seen clips of other productions where the actors are elbowing you in the ribs so much that it doesn’t work," he says. "There's so much heart in these characters, and that's why you stay emotionally invested amid the comedy."
Despite the camp, the carnage and the rocking numbers, Coleman and company are leaning into the show’s sincere core. Seymour wants love. Audrey wants safety. And both are tempted to make dark bargains to get what they want.
"Audiences can experience Little Shop of Horrors on multiple levels," Coleman says. "You can just come and enjoy the yuks and the wonderful music. Or you could take away something a little deeper. Don't sell your soul — that's what they're writing about."
Little Shop of Horrors began previews Friday, April 11, opens Friday, April 18, and runs through Sunday, May 25 in the Wolf Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Tickets are $47 to $130. Learn more at denvercenter.org.
