Q&A: 'Little Shop of Horrors' Director Tyler Lawrence '16

For one weekend only, Princeton University Players presents “Little Shop of Horrors.” Composed by Alan Menken and written by Howard Ashman, this musical incorporates horror, comedy and rock in the tale of a florist shop worker raising a flesh-eating plant. PUP’s production, directed by Tyler Lawrence ’16, runs this Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the Matthews Acting Studio at 185 Nassau Street. Senior Writer Caroline Hertz caught up with Lawrence to get the inside scoop on this quirky show.

The Daily Princetonian: What was your initial draw to the show? What’s your favorite thing about “Little Shop of Horrors”?

Tyler Lawrence:I was actually first exposed to it when I was in it during my freshman year of high school.“Little Shop of Horrors”is a really bizarre show — whenever I try to explain the story to people who don’t know it, they always give me a pretty skeptical look. Musicals are “supposed” to be happy, and what could be happy about a man-eating plant? But even with this ridiculous story, and maybe partly because of it, it’s stuck around for years and years and years. Plenty of people who don't know theater know it [“Little Shop of Horrors”], or have seen the movie, or saw it when their high school did it. I think on some level, I love it because it’s managed to take this nutty story and turn it into something people want to see again and again.

DP: Tell us about your production. What’s your take on the show?

TL:The reason that I wanted to mount“Little Shop”was actually because I had an idea about a year-and-a-half ago of a production that featured a female plant. Instead of the typical giant plant puppets, we’re putting the actress [Allison Light ’18] physically on stage in a giant plant-dress made by the phenomenally talented Julia Peiperl [’17]. She is free to move and interact with the other characters. Normally, characters can only interact so far with the plant, because at the end of the day, it’s basically a giant Muppet. But when there’s an actual actress there, inhabiting the space? It totally changes things up in the ways that other characters interact with her and in all of her moments that an actress can convey much better than any puppet. I was also very fortunate to find a cast that was able to take all of this and go with it.

The language that the Plant uses can be really, really sexual and totally dripping with innuendo, but sometimes it gets lost between the giant puppets and the booming baritone voice. I wanted to make sure that in our production, there wasno waysome of those undertones would get swept under the rug.

DP:What has the process been like?

TL:It’s been a really interesting process, because I think there’s something cool and exciting about doing a show that very much has an “expected” or “traditional” way to put it on. Also, it has been interesting to figure out how to fit in an element that’s totally at odds with that traditional production. I found that there were moments in rehearsals where we had no earthly idea how to get some things to work. I’d think I had something figured out in my head, only to get into the rehearsal room and realize that for 10 billion and one reasons none of it worked, and I had to scrap it. But that’s part of the fun. Every time we did that, we figured out another layer of how to make things work.

DP:What do you think audiences will love about the show?

TL:For people who know and love“Little Shop”already, I think they’ll be intrigued by what we’ve done — most of what people know and love is still there, and our actors have done a really fantastic job of inhabiting these iconic characters in a fresh way.

As for people who don’t know it, I honestly don’t know. On some level, I think the choices we’ve made might make the show more approachable, as weird as that may sound. I realize that “sexy plant lady” doesn’t scream “approachable,” but it’s definitely going to be a fun few hours of theater. I hope people will come see what we’ve put together!