Little Shop Revival- why didn't it do well?

too big a theater for too small a show.

Could be too, that the new orchestrations killed it!

Little Shop has a HUGE following that could have filled the Virginia, but IMHO this prodution was not well executed. It started in Florida where they fired half the production team, Director and cast and started fresh. Sometimes this works e.g. AIDA but most of the time your show is in a lot of trouble, as in this case.

The orchestrations and new arrangements are so terrible, there are random Trumpet flourishes and flutes and the like. This is supposed to be a GARAGE BAND Musical like ROCKY HORROR and what did they do?? I can't even stand to listen to the new recording it makes me so mad!

And sometimes when something is done so well the first time, Like old movies, It is a mistake to remake them because, if you're not faithful, all of your original fans end up hating the new product!

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Updated On: 9/5/05 at 10:10 AM

The Virginia Theatre is HUGE. It's hard for any show to fill it.

The revival was poorly executed. It had bad buzz from the Florida fiasco, and the cast-except for Hunter-wasn't very good.

It was a crappy production.

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I've seen better productions of Little Shop in college and amateur theatre. The direction was awful and didn't understand the tone needed to make the show work. The actors were "winking" at the audience and selling the jokes (you have to play it straight in order for the laughs to emerge) which KILLED much of the humor of it. They probably lost 40% of the laughs in the show. And then expanding it into a $10 million show was ludicrous. It's charms are intimate (it was perfect downtown at the Orpheum in the 80s) and most of them were lost in the Virginia.

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Updated On: 9/5/05 at 10:25 AM

I feel the tour is in great shape. Many say that it is much better than the Broadway production.

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I loved it.

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I agree that they made it too big. I don't know. I love Little Shop but this production really did nothing for me. I think it would've done better in a smaller house with some different directing choices.

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Greene owns that role, now and forever, managing to convey poignance, vulnerability, chutzpah along with razor sharp comedic timing. She truly could make you laugh and cry at the same time. Butler was clueless.

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Updated On: 9/5/05 at 11:28 AM

Little Shop is our Holiday show here in Denver at the Buell Theatre. It seats over 2800 people! I will see it just because we always go to whatever show is in around Christmas. Think I will use my comps for this one though!

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Ellen Greene WAS Audrey. Just like Merman WAS Mama Rose: Many will try to do the role, nobody will ever do it better.

I thought the way Zaks treated the Urchins was very careless. I don't think he understood their function.