The musical “Little Shop of Horrors” put on by Wenatchee High School just came to a close, and what a show it was! The show’s story follows a young man named Seymour Krelborn, played by Senior Kade Devereaux, who’s just trying to have a good life in a quiet,unsuccessful plant shop on “Skid Row”, the dumpy downtown area where poverty is normal and happiness is rare. He’s in love with his coworker named Audrey, played by Iris Jaffe, who, to his misfortune, is in an awful relationship and has been on Skid Row her whole life.
Nothing seems to be going well for poor old Seymour until he acquires an extraordinary plant that he nicknames the “Audrey 2”. The plant makes the shop famous and life starts to turn around pretty quickly for Seymour, with everything finally beginning to go his way. That is, until the plant starts having some unusual cravings…
The Wenatchee cast portrayed this story very well. I went in never having seen Little Shop of Horrors, the movie or the musical, and the actors and actresses got the story across great. I understood every bit of it and was very pleased with their telling of the story. It was definitely a good show to have gone to if you like a complex but clear storyline.
A personal highlight for me would have to be the evil dentist named Orin, played by Dominic Cochran, who’s also the abusive boyfriend of Audrey. Dominic played the character so well with his maniacal laughing and did a fantastic job showing how horrible and awful a person the dentist was. No offense to Cochran, but Orin’s death unfortunately had to be one of the most satisfying parts of the whole show.
They performed each song with such precision. Every actor clearly put in hours upon hours of practice with their music, making every song, lead to ensemble, entrancing. The only issue I happened to notice was that on occasion the music seemed just a little too loud for the actors, along with some technical issues, but the actors managed to push through and project and enunciate every word.
The production itself was absolutely amazing. The set design perfectly captured the down and dreary feeling of Skid Row while also still providing large bright and fun numbers throughout the show. Each of the set pieces themselves had immense detail, from simple doorways to an entire store that was moved across the stage on wheels.
Along with the rest of the show, the costumes were nothing short of perfect. They captured every character’s personality. The costumes put everything into place so well, it felt like I was at the movies. Some characters, however, didn’t even have a costume but an entire, giant, man-eating puppet voiced by Cruz Martinez.
Overall this show was a stunning performance both visually and audibly. I don’t think I’d exactly recommend it for the younger age groups just because of certain graphic scenes and slight crude language, but it was still a great watch for older audiences. The show was absolutely amazing and I would definitely recommend going and taking some friends to enjoy a Wenatchee High School musical in the future, because not a single show is a let down.
