Little Shop of Horrors

Well, the Pineda’s (plus honorary Pineda, Chris Johnson) were ass-tired after spending the day torturing our lovely conservatory students. But I knew we’d need some form of stress relief anyway, so I bought us all tickets to Little Shop at the Paper Mill. All in all, it was an extremely solid and enjoyable production. Probably most impressive were the urchins - holla’ to Montego Glover (Chiffon), a NY acquaintance of mine - those bitches can sing ya’ll. Not to be all racist and sh*t, but it was nice to hear African-American performers not “push” the singing and riffing so much, a la American Idol. All three just sang full and healthy and riffed tastefully but judiciously. It was obvious they were all kick-ass vocalists and didn’t need to have a my-dick’s-bigger-than-yours contest with each other - no jealousy or vocal envy between these three.

The physical production was also quite good. Much more appropriate and interesting than the hideous “modern” empty stage they tried to pass off as a “concept” for the last show I saw there, Baby. The rest of the cast was more than adequate with Jenny Fellner (Audrey) giving a surprisingly moving and funny rendition of “Somewhere That’s Green.” The only disappointment was Asa Somers (Orin) who I’ve seen do great work in Dance of the Vampires and recently in Next To Normal. He seemed miscast and not very distinctive as the sadistic dentist. Maybe it was on off night. Oh well, overall a solid B+. On a side note, there was an extremely loud farter sitting right by Trish and I. Nasty! He/She literally blew their horn twice, quite loudly during the first act. He/She must have downed the tums at intermission because we were fart-free during the second act. Well, unless they were letting loose some SBD’s. Good times at the Papermill.