[Catherine]

OK, well my drama teacher asked a few of us the other day "have you got any ideas for a production next year", and i was about suggest lsoh, buti thought: how on earth would we do audrey 2?

we're quite low-budget school you see, so we couldn't do anything too expensive

if anyone has any ideas it would be so appriciated

also, does anyone know what range audrey and the three singers are?

many thanks

[OnceUponATime]

We did Little Shop on a very small budget.

Get a huge pot, lots of foam, spray paint, chicken wire... It looked pretty fantastic, really... but was a huge pain in the ass to make.

While the mouth did open and close, it never actually ate anyone. We used a strobe effect for the chewing and darkened the stage long enough for the victims to sneak behind the stage.

[pish123c]

Why would you do LSoH in a school? theres no chorus!


anyway...audrey is played by a bass with a microphone that really makes their voice boom.


I'd say you could make most of the sets and such yourself, audrey would be the most expensive things.
and please don't make your audrey. i saw a production where they made theires, and it was just horrible. twisted chicken wire visibly whenever it opened its mouth...uggg. the cast was basically assembling back together during scenes.

[dwarves r very upsetting]

[Catherine]

ooh yeah! the chorus!
damn
eh, i dunno, twas just a suggestion, i don't think we'd be able to pull it off

thanks anyway you guys

[OnceUponATime]

Do you have to have a chorus? Some of my best high school shows (Godspell, 1940's Radio Hour) were sans chorus.

We did make it so that Orin's minor roles are played by other people... but they only showed their face during "Skid Row" and other applicable songs, so you could do that.

[Cinedramatic]

I did LSoH with my community theatre who couldn't afford to only have 7 or so characters. The entire thing is possible to do with a chorus. The three parts in The Meek Shall Inherit can be given to others and there's some small lines that can be given to others. Closed For Renovations can be rearranged as a group number which was fun because everyone spiffed up the shop on stage.

It would work.

[broadwayfreak67]

I saw 'Little Shop' a few years ago with like a 30 person cast.
It worked.

They had like the entire cast in The Prologue and Skid Row. They divided up Orin's 9870 parts. They had three other girls in addition to Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon, which many groups end up doing. (Ones that I have seen, anyway.)

It all worked, and I really liked the effect of having more people. ;]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/broadwayfreak67/Other/Prolouge.bmp
A small picture, but whatever, it's all I could find.

[Cinedramatic]

Yeah I forgot to mention that we had six girls as the urchins too.

[momsterv]

My daughter's high school just did it, but they did 2 musicals this year, LSOH was done as juniors & seniors only, with a smaller cast (they usually have 40-50 in a show).

They included a lot of bums who were on stage a lot, a few customers instead of 1. They did use Orin to play all the other characters, but I've heard of schools using different people for those characters.

During "Skid Row" they had at least 20 people on stage. Seems like you could do those group numbers with a somewhat larger chorus.

[Monsieur D'Arque]

If you want to do it with more people, PLEASE watch the movie for a stylistic guide. Don't just shoehorn people in. The movie, while imperfect, uses its ensemble perfectly, in just the right places.

My suggestions: Use ensemble during Skid Row. Use again during Closed for Renovation and The Meek- see the movie for ideas on how to work ensemble into these scenes.

[mary_lion]

We did LSOH for our school production- and our show was VERY VERY low budget. We also did not have a lot of experienced cast members either and we pulled it off very well. Our drama department made our plant outta chicken wire, and material- it was really cool, and it ate people. Also our cast made our set, and with enough practice we were able to nail the parts, and had a great show- I think it is an awesome shcool show because it is SO much fun
Oh Ps- if you have lots of ppl, you can add mroe as urchins- we had 6 urchins, and they just split the lines up- it worked very well. We also added people in on skid rom, and the meek shall inherit, so everyone had a part