Theater Review: "Little Shop of Horrors" at The Taft School

WATERTOWN - The Taft School presented the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” for four performances this weekend in the Bingham Auditorium on their busy campus in Watertown. The Taft production was directed by Helena Fifer with musical direction by TJ Thompson.

“Little Shop,” with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken and based on the film by Roger Corman, unfolds in or just outside Mushnick’s Flower Shop of Skid Row, in a decade not too far long before our own. The director noted that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the show.

The director shared that instead of building or renting a large plant puppet, they chose to make their plant a hybrid of dancers and puppetry. “...Spring has definitely come to Bingham in the form of an unstoppable green human-eating dance machine,” Fifer wrote.

This version of the plant is clever indeed and works perfectly, with large leaves that the dancers used to cover its victims.

The Taft seniors involved in their final show included Dance Captain Grace Kenney, who performed the bubbly choreography with the Ronnettes and as one of the winos, as well as being part of the plant.

Leo Kaplan tackled the role of Seymour in the show that he never thought this group would be able to put on after lockdown canceled it two years ago. Mercury Titterton, the stage manager, enjoyed getting to see both the technical and theatrical aspects of the show come to life and mesh together.

Benjamin White who has been part of the theater program for the past four years, gave a very strong performance as both the voice and the body of the Audrey II. Three dancers, Grace Deng ‘23, Kenney and Marina Tanaka ‘23, wore long green gloves to help make the ever growing plant come alive.

Maddie Gabriele ‘24 played Crystal, Amaraya Hernandez ‘24 was Ronnette and Maya Lewis ‘24 used her big singing voice to play the role of Chiffon. Vincent Chen ‘24 did very well as flower shop owner Mr. Mushnik, and Elle Smiley ‘25 was a delight in the role of Audrey. Sijie Yan ‘23 did well as the evil dentist Orin and returned to play a few other characters.

Everyone in the inclusive cast gave their all to their performances. In the ensemble were Hanna Englander ‘24, Qamar Gul Hussanini ‘24, Kenney and Sara Takanable ‘24.

The imaginative set was designed by David Kievit and featured a section that rotated to reveal the dentist office. The costumes designed by Lesley Neilson Bowman fit the period perfectly and had the added bonus of being appropriate for high school performers. Attractive flower hoods surrounded the faces of the eaten for the final act. Hair and makeup by Gina Ludlow was well-done, especially for the face of the actor playing Audrey II.

The lighting design of Matt Jandreau made the most of both the set and performers in their costumes and sound designed by Chip Machokas performed well. Rob Richnavsky served as fight coordinator and staging.

The blood-thristy plant was designed by Susan Becker Aziz and was unique, especially in its final incarnation.

The orchestra, led by Thompson from behind keyboard one, sounded great on all of the numbers. John Pytel played reed one, Anthony Pelligrini was on reed two, Joseph Spitzer covered trumpet one with Cheryl Karpeichik on trumpet two, and Taft junior Harry Yuan played keyboard two. Shreyas Ran played the guitar line, Eneji Alungbe played bass, and James Allen covered percussion. Ciara Connoly of the class of 2017 played drums.

The show was presented with one short intermission and the matinee that I attended was well attended. One young audience member echoed one of the plant’s “Feed Me” pleas and brought smiles to the audience.

Nancy Sasso Janis has been writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local theatre venues. She posts reviews of well over 100 productions each year. In 2016, she became a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle. She continues to contribute theatre news, previews, and audition notices to local Patch sites. Reviews of all levels of theatrical productions are posted on Naugatuck Patch and the Patch sites closest to the venue. She recently became a contributor to the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. Her weekly column and theatre reviews appear in the Thursday Weekend section of the paper.

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