By Cole Strzelecki
The Stageless Players will be performing Little Shop of Horrors for their spring semester show. Performances will occur on March 31 at 7:00 p.m., April 1 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., and April 2 at 2:00 p.m. in Sleith Hall’s Wood Auditorium. Tickets are available now and will be available at the door upon entry into the Auditorium until all spots are sold-out.
This Little Shop of Horrors production is directed by Eric Boucher, a founding member of Western Massachusetts’ longest-running comedy troupe “Phantom Sheep.” Boucher and other crew members are from outside Western New England University. He, specifically, comes to our University, wielding over 22 years of experience in the field and after designing several shows while on the Artistic Committee of Opera House Players of Enfield, Connecticut.
“This is the first time we’ve brought in an all-outside team,” Julia Hart, the president of Stageless Players and a senior at our University, explained, “We are very excited about this show.” Hart has been a part of many performances that Stageless has put on and directed last year’s show Little Women. Though this year’s show is her final one, she plans to, as she expressed, “go out with a bang.”
Little Shop of Horrors is about an alien plant brought into a failing flower shop that brings them success and keeps growing to the point of gaining the ability to talk. The story revolves around the characters of Seymour, an employee at the flower shop played by junior Owen Boyns, Audrey, another employee played by junior Allie Provost, and Mr. Mushnik, the flower shop owner, who freshman Joshua Farrell plays. Each of these actors was carefully selected for these roles and has worked hard to memorize and be able to recite their lines perfectly.
“It was about an eight-week process to get to where we are now,” Hart discussed. The team did auditions the first week of this spring semester and immediately afterward created a cast and started rehearsing. “This year we had a good sized auditioning pool,” Hart began, “Of course we still did have to cut people, which is sad. But we didn’t have as many people, so this was a good year to perform this show.”
The cast is supported by the club’s largest student-run tech crew since before Covid-19, led by sophomore Cole Crosby. Crosby is this show’s Technical Director and Lighting Director and has helped out in previous Stageless performances in other technical-based roles. Though leading the tech crew for the first time through this performance may be a new experience for him, he ensures that he and the crew are working to the best of their abilities to fulfill this show’s tech and lighting-related needs.
Similarly, set production has been focused on to a great extent to ensure it is dynamic for the performance’s extensive use of set dressing. Tommy Lynch, another person from outside our University offering help for the Stageless Players, oversaw the set creation. Having been part of the set build team of over seven shows with Opera House Players, Lynch was more than qualified and welcome to help with this performance aspect.
“Having these outside people have certainly helped,” Hart explained. Even the Audrey Two plant set pieces came from operations outside the University and Stageless’ set-building team. “We were able to rent them from the Opera House Players, so we just needed to fix them up rather than build them from scratch,” Hart ended.
The cast and crew of this production are looking forward to showing off their hard work to the Western New England University community. According to Hart, the club had been looking into performing this show for several years and finally got the perfect chance. Everyone should check out this long-awaited performance and support the Stageless Players.
