Little Shop Of Horrors with Jonathan Groff

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Yes - they all have that "contemporary musical" style. Though to me, Finn has a very distinctive style of his own.

 

Finn's work on 'The I Love You Song' is incredible.

 

I still remember sitting there at Circle in the Square, hearing the audience laugh a bit at Celia Keenan-Bolger on the first verse and then go dead silent for the rest of it. Pin-drop silent. And then quiet sobbing.

 

It's a great song.

[bostonman]

Finn's work on 'The I Love You Song' is incredible.

 

I still remember sitting there at Circle in the Square, hearing the audience laugh a bit at Celia Keenan-Bolger on the first verse and then go dead silent for the rest of it. Pin-drop silent. And then quiet sobbing.

 

It's a great song.

 

Yes. For me, I remember hearing the CD the first time, thinking a lot of the material was cute, but not perhaps that great of a score. Then that song came on and absolutely slayed me.

 

I will also say that after having seen the show, and then also doing it, I gained a huge appreciation for it, and now that score is a big favorite. And the show is just so much fun to do. Especially with the volunteer spellers - you just never know what's going to happen.

 

I had a student working on "My Unfortunate Erection" in one of my classes this past semester (a college musical theatre studio class with all juniors) . But he was just getting over a cold, and the song wasn't quite in his voice yet. We were all laughing in sympathy when he got to the last section and just didn't have the stamina for the notes at all. Always up for a good pun, my first comment afterwards was, "pardon me for this - but I guess the song is just a little too...um...hard...today?" More laughter from the class.

 

And, with your comment on the original production of Spelling Bee, I realize we now have mentioned both Andrew and Celia Keenan-Bolger in the same thread. Fun.

[foxy]

I saw the original production in 1982 at the Orpheum Theater and loved the show. Ellen Greene was so wonderful. I saw a revival in 2003 with Hunter Foster. At that performance they were taking donations for Broadway Cares. For a $20 donation I had my photo taken with Foster which I’m pleased to say I still have. I’m sorry I missed the Encores production with Ellen Greene and Jake Gyllenhaal. In 2017 I saw Once on This Island. As the lights were going down two men came into my aisle and sat next to me. One was Jonathan Groff. As they squeezed by me I made a joke about “tourists” showing up late for a show. Groff responded about being “bridge & tunnel”. He was very enthusiastic during the show. As we were exiting the theater I was walking next to him. I rarely engage famous people thinking they deserve their privacy. But I had just finished binge watching Mindhunter and I told him how much I liked it and was looking forward to a second season. He was very charming and we had a short conversation. In the lobby a few people went up to speak to him and he was very approachable. He’s such a talented guy and really handsome in person. I have my ticket for this new production. I’m sure it will be good.

[mlscott]

Be careful in buying tickets. J Groff not performing in the show the first two weeks of November per Telecharge

[+ nycman]

Be careful in buying tickets. J Groff not performing in the show the first two weeks of November per Telecharge

And all other dates have sold out.

 

Lots of dates don’t even have scalping tickets available.

 

Good luck!

[bostonman]

I would guarantee the show will extend. The ticket site intimates as much, just that they haven't announced dates past 11/24 yet.

 

I'm hoping that happens, because my only window to possibly see the show at this point is sometime in December, or next March and beyond. And I just found out yesterday that I know someone in the cast (one of the 3 urchins) - and I'd love to be able to see her in the show!

 

Also, two dates for whatever reason is not sold out - yet - it would seem there are still tickets for Sept 26 and Oct 25. But probably not for long...

[+ WilliamM]

I would guarantee the show will extend. The ticket site intimates as much, just that they haven't announced dates past 11/24 yet.

 

I'm hoping that happens, because my only window to possibly see the show at this point is sometime in December, or next March and beyond. And I just found out yesterday that I know someone in the cast (one of the 3 urchins) - and I'd love to be able to see her in the show!

 

Also, two dates for whatever reason is not sold out - yet - it would seem there are still tickets for Sept 26 and Oct 25. But probably not for long...

 

October 25 is sold out now ...just a few minutes ago.

[mlscott]

Gideon Glick will be stepping in for Groff 11/5 - 11/17 it was just announced

[edjames]

I saw this afternoon's matinee performance and LOVED IT!

It's a fun show. I saw the original down at the Orpheum theater on Second Avenue decades ago.

Ellen Green, from the original film, was a diva/chantuese here in NYC back in the 70's, and I saw her perform in a number of clubs.

She went on to star in the Broadway production of Rachel Lily Rosenbloom ( and don't you forget it), which was originally touted for Ms. Midler but Bette's career took off and she bowed out.

Anyway, that was then, and here we are with a new production at a small and intimate westside theater. The cast is wonderful and I'm happy to say the audience loved it, too.

It officially opens tomorrow night , October 17.

Getting tickets is next to impossible although the two seats on the aisle in my row (D) were vacant for this performance.

I believe there is a daily lottery.

Somehow, I don't think this show will transition into another theater as theater space at a premium.

Groff is adorable as Seymour, although he sprays the audience with spit when he sings! I also noted that it looked like he had generous coating of Vaseline his lips...don't get me started, there's a whole bunch of gay-themed moments in this show!!!

I met up with talented actress, Tammy Blanchard after the show and shared a walk in the pouring rain to the West Bank Cafe on 42nd St. She's an absolute delight. AND...she SO resembles Judy Garland, It's almost eerie. She won an Emmy in 2001 for playing Judy in the TV film Life With Judy Garland Me and My Shadows.

Oh yes, Christian Borle, is also very good.

 

Ok, reviews to come soon...

[+ E.T.Bass]

A production is also running in Pasadena with Mj Rodriquez and George Salazar, but you'll have to hurry to get a ticket.

 

Charles McNulty LATimes critic liked it and he is not easy to please.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkUPUc4Q6bg:5

[bostonman]

A production is also running in Pasadena with Mj Rodriquez and George Salazar, but you'll have to hurry to get a ticket.

 

I understand this production is set in the present day, not in the early 1960's as everything in the show dictates. What a fucking stupid thing to do.

[Doe Be Doe]

I'm thinking about trying to see this a second time. I really enjoyed it and I love Groff. I've never seen a play twice in the same production. I wonder if I do see it again will it be a little less fun.

[edjames]

And its a HIT! RAVE reviews...

 

Ben Brantley in the NYTimes said:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/theater/little-shop-of-horrors-review-jonathan-groff-feeds-the-beast.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

 

‘Little Shop of Horrors’ Review: Jonathan Groff Feeds the Beast

Michael Mayer’s revitalizing revival of this genially gruesome classic becomes a sly morality tale for the age of universal celebrity.

 

A certain carnivorous plant has been repotted in Hell’s Kitchen, and I am delighted to report that it’s thriving there. This hot showbiz shrub of yesteryear, which goes by the name of Audrey II, has found a new dance partner, a performer who can coax the tendril-stretching star quality out of a freakish botanical specimen.

That would be Jonathan Groff, who is generating major nerd charisma in Michael Mayer’s delicious revival of “Little Shop of Horrors,” which opened Thursday at the Westside Theater/Upstairs.

A bouncy, wide-eyed veteran of Broadway musicals (“Spring Awakening,” “Hamilton”), Groff has more recently found streaming celebrity as an impressionable, serial-killer-stalking F.B.I. agent in

As Seymour, the dorky hero of “Little Shop,” the 1982 musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, he scents his ingratiating persona as a song-and-dance kid with a creepy whiff of rankly corruptible innocence.

This Seymour — a flower shop assistant catapulted to fame as the caretaker of the man-eating Audrey II — is sweeter and scarier than earlier incarnations. As such, Groff is of a piece with a production, which also features a winningly cast Tammy Blanchard and Christian Borle, that understands that camp is most successful when it’s played with straight-faced sincerity, instead of a wink and a smirk.

 

 

“Little Shop” has been around the block since it first became an Off Broadway hit, with a cast led by Lee Wilkof and the divine Ellen Greene. Inspired by

The Little Shop of Horrors,” the musical adaptation was itself recycled as a 1986 movie, and there are current rumors (sigh) of a cinematic remake.

Onstage, the show has been a deathless favorite of high school and community theaters. And Audrey II and company made their Broadway debut in an overscale, anodyne 2003 production.

There was also an emotionally resonant 2015 Encores! concert version, in which Greene re-created her original role opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. With that, I felt I was ready to say goodbye for a whileto this lovable little show from my youth.

Yet against expectation, Mayer’s interpretation, staged in a 270-seat theater, summons the shivery elation I felt seeing “Shop” at the East Village’s Orpheum nearly four decades earlier. It restores the show to its original scale and sensibility, reminding us of the special potency of grisly things that come in small, impeccably wrapped packages.

It’s not an exact facsimile of the 1982 production, which was directed by Ashman. Working with an ace design team, Mayer heightens the show’s classic pulp elements, its aura of low-rent noir splashed with flecks of blood-red.

Julian Crouch’s Skid Row set — in which sooty door stoops frame the dingy shop of the title — is an urban-legend rhapsody in grime, lighted to chill by Bradley King. It is here that Groff’s Seymour toils thanklessly as the klutzy assistant of its owner, Mushnik (an agreeably unsympathetic Tom Alan Robbins).

His fellow employee, Audrey (Blanchard), is a masochistic sweetheart who is dating a sadistic dentist. (The indefatigably vivid Borle, a two-time Tony winner, makes antic hay out of this and other roles.) She is also the girl of Seymour’s dreams, and in her honor he bestows the name Audrey II on that strange and sickly plant he picked up in Chinatown during a solar eclipse.

Audrey II, it turns out, has a voice, a rolling, soulful, irresistibly imperious bass provided by Kingsley Leggs, sounding like a hybrid of Chuck Berry and Barry White. And it demands that Seymour feed it with human blood. As the plant keeps growing, Seymour becomes a star by association with this outsize creature. But maintaining fame requires sacrifice, and human sacrifice, at that.

Ashman (book and lyrics) and Menken (music) — who would go on to collaborate on beloved scores for animated Disney musicals like “The Little Mermaid” — had the felicitous idea of setting this story to the cadences and close harmonies of Brill Building-style pop. The plot here is annotated by a Greek chorus of street Urchins. (Will Van Dyke is the deft arranger and orchestrator.) Their stylistic provenance is indicated by their names: Ronnette,Crystal and Chiffon, the smartly synchronized yet spikily individualistic team of Ari Groover, Salome Smith and Joy Woods. (One caveat: the band-heavy sound balance sometimes makes their witty lyrics incomprehensible.)

Blanchard’s singing voice tends to leap gung-ho onto notes, like an anxious but enthusiastic sky diver who never knows where she might land. This turns out to perfectly match her confidence-challenged character, whose past is checkered with abusive Mr. Wrongs. (The actress’s conviction enhances our discomfort at seeing Audrey show up at work bruised and battered from her love life, a visual joke that now registers uneasily.)

Wearing bandage-tight, cleavage-framing dresses (Tom Broecker did the spot on costumes) and striking gracefully ungainly poses of distress, this Audrey brings to mind those imperiled dames on the covers of vintage crime paperbacks. In contrast, the bespectacled, schlubby Seymour is nearly invisible when we first meet him.

But like Audrey II — whose ever-larger, ever-hungrier incarnations are embodied by Nicholas Mahon’s fab puppets — Seymour continues to grow in presence.

Watch the expression on Groff’s face as he sidles across the stage, cradling an early, snapping hand puppet version of his truest soul mate, which tries to nibble on the front row. Attention is new to Seymour; he likes it. And when, surrounded by frisky Urchins, he does an involuntary hip bump, his face glows with a subtle, gratified surprise.

“Hey, this feels good,” he seems to be saying. And without ever entirely abandoning Seymour’s initial deadpan mien or milquetoast voice, Groff charts a precise evolution of a man becoming drunk on the prospect of world renown. Which, this being a musical comedy, happily parallels a performer unbending into the liberation of good old, show-off showbiz.

The Corman film of “Shop” was, like many horror and sci-fi flicks of the Eisenhower years, a fable of the atomic age, playing to a nation’s fears of science run amok. This triumphantly revitalized musical has its own sly message for an era in which celebrity is regarded as a constitutional right: Embrace fame at your peril. It’s a killer.

 

the reviews give way to speculation on what the future holds. An extension is possible, but will Groff, Blanchard and Borle all be available? A larger theater move may ruin the intimacy of this production. we'll see...

[edjames]

NYPost loved it, too...

 

‘Little Shop of Horrors’ review: Jonathan Groff, Tammy Blanchard get real

By Johnny Oleksinski

October 17, 2019 | 9:00pm | Updated

Westside Theatre, 407 W 43rd St.; 212-315-2302. Running time: 2 hours, one intermission.

THEATER REVIEW LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

 

Westside Theatre, 407 W 43rd St.; 212-315-2302. Running time: 2 hours, one intermission.

Suddenly Seymour is standing beside you. Like, right beside you.

“Little Shop of Horrors,” which opened Thursday night off-Broadway, is getting a much more intimate staging than when it last played New York, both on Broadway and at the large City Center.

Tight feels right, because the roots of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s terrific show are in small houses. Now the insanely catchy doo-wop musical occupies the 270-seat Westside Theatre, with a bare-bones set and not a projection in sight. Freed from dealing with the usual trappings of modern musicals, you can feel the actors let their vines down.

Jonathan Groff (TV’s “Mindhunter”) plays Seymour, the hapless florist who, after an unexplained blackout, stumbles upon an unusual Venus flytrap-like plant that changes his life. His co-worker crush Audrey (Tammy Blanchard) starts paying attention to him, and Mushnik’s Flower Shop is bombarded by customers who want to see the strange creature Seymour’s named Audrey II. Problem is, this picky vegetation doesn’t live on water or fertilizer — it needs human blood. There are only so many ways to acquire that … such as murder.

Those familiar with Rick Moranis’ neurotic Seymour from the film may be surprised by Groff’s more subdued take. He doesn’t play up eccentricity or geekiness: He’s just one of those sweet guys society ignores.

Blanchard, too, doesn’t go the cartoon route with Audrey. She is genuinely anguished by her Skid Row life and her dangerous relationship with Orin the dentist (Christian Borle). You don’t have to look hard in New York to find someone who can belt “Suddenly Seymour,” but you do to find one as real and gut-wrenching as Blanchard.

And, yes, Michael Mayer’s production — with its blood and death set to bouncy tunes — is still hilarious. Borle’s dentist leaves you gasping for breath when he inhales nitrous oxide for kicks. His erratic energy is that of Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” And there are laughs to be had at how perfectly big Audrey II (voiced by Kingsley Leggs) is puppeteered as Leggs croons “Feed Me.”

Don’t feed the plant, but do see “Little Shop.”

 

https://nypost.com/2019/10/17/little-shop-of-horrors-review-jonathan-groff-tammy-blanchard-get-real/

[+ WilliamM]

I saw "Little Shop" this afternoon. Greatly regret I was so unprepared.

 

Usually, I like knowing very little about a musical. But, not today.

 

I liked Jonathan Groff a lot and the rest of the cast.

 

Also know I was very lucky to get a seat.

[bostonman]

I saw "Little Shop" this afternoon. Greatly regret I was so unprepared.

 

Usually, I like knowing very little about a musical. But, not today.

 

I liked Jonathan Groff a lot and the rest of the cast.

 

Also know I was very lucky to get a seat.

 

When I first saw the show in Boston in the 80's, I knew the recording very well but not the book, and it was fun to see it all come together. Also interesting to find out that a few of the songs had been recorded in versions rather different from the show score.

 

One of my favorite "surprises" in the design was at the very end of the show - the seating was, at least, in part, "cafe style" at small tables, and right on the button of "Don't Feed The Plants," paper "vines" were released from the ceiling, all around us. It was always fun to take friends to the show and to see them get startled by that. It was the perfect "shock" ending to a truly wonderful production.

[+ WilliamM]

I had just arrived in New York Wednesday afternoon, but that is not a good excuse to be so uninformed.

 

But, I did see "The Great Society" Thursday night. Brian Cox was wonderful as Lyndon Johnson. And I remember his struggles for civil rights, and far worse for some black families, Vietnam.

[+ WilliamM]

 

From "The Great Society" on Broadway. Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson at the height of the Vietnam War. Brian Cox as LBJ was on stage for almost three hours.

[foxy]

Saw Little Shop of Horrors yesterday’s Sunday matinee. Great show, great cast highly recommended even if you’ve seen other productions. Special applause must go to the 3 urchins, Ari Groover, Salome Smith and Joy Woods who kept the energy so high. I was in the second row center and Jonathan Groff sure is a spitter. He just missed me at times. But if you’re going to get spit on, well, he’s my guy.

[+ WilliamM]

Saw Little Shop of Horrors yesterday’s Sunday matinee. Great show, great cast highly recommended even if you’ve seen other productions. Special applause must go to the 3 urchins, Ari Groover, Salome Smith and Joy Woods who kept the energy so high. I was in the second row center and Jonathan Groff sure is a spitter. He just missed me at times. But if you’re going to get spit on, well, he’s my guy.

 

 

I was sitting in the second row as well.

 

Jonathan was the same in "Spring Awakening," Off-Broadway in a small theater.

[+ nycman]

Finally saw it. It’s almost impossible to get tickets.

 

Thankfully it’s in a very small theater and there’s not a bad seat in the

house. Grab any ticket you can get your hands on. Groff is amazing and

his performance alone is worth the price of a scalped ticket. Audrey was

played by her understudy, but she was still very good. Loved the set.

I thought the street Urchins were delightful and managed to come off as

unique individuals. Mushnik....was Mushnik.....it’s not a lovable part.

Audrey II was strong and impressive.

 

I didn’t love Christian Borle as the dentist, but he’s undeniably talented.

 

Overall, it’s a great production that stays true to it roots. See it if you can.

[+ g56whiz]

stays true to it roots.

There’s a pun in there. I swear it.

[+ nycman]

There’s a pun in there. I swear it.

I’m so thankful not to be casting my pearls before swine.

 

Grin

[Doe Be Doe]

I saw it and loved it. How much longer is Groff in the cast?

[edjames]

Hurry! Groff ends his run on January 19.

 

Tickets are on sale thru March 15.

 

Jonanthan's replacement will be:

 

Gideon Glick Will Take Over as Seymour in Off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors; Production Extends Again

 

Don't it go to show, ya never know! On the heels of a two-week run in off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors while Jonathan Groff was on leave, Gideon Glick has signed on to succeed Groff as Seymour Krelborn in the new production at the Westside Theatre next year. Glick will play the role from January 21 through a new extension date of March 8, 2020, with Groff slated to take his final bow in the revival on January 19.

 

Glick earned his first Tony nomination this past season for his performance as Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird, during which he vlogged for Broadway.com. His résumé also includes a Broadway-debut turn in Spring Awakening (alongside Groff), as well as Significant Otherand Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. He has previously appeared off-Broadway in The Harvest, Into the Woods and Wild Animals You Should Know.

 

Glick will join a cast that includes Tammy Blanchard as Audrey, Christian Borle as Orin Scrivello D.D.S., Tom Alan Robbins as Mr. Mushnik, Kingsley Leggs as the voice of Audrey II, Ari Groover as Ronnette, Salome Smith as Crystal and Joy Woods as Chiffon. Rounding out the company are Stephen Berger, Chris Dwan, Kris Roberts, Chelsea Turbin, Eric Wright and Teddy Yudain.