I am super excited that Jake Gyllenhaal and Chuck Cooper will be joining us in the production of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ at City Center in July!

 

Photo by BroadwayWorld.com

by BWW News Desk

Jake Gyllenhaal, Chuck Cooper and Taran Killam will join the previously announced Ellen Greene in the Encores! Off-Center concert production ofHoward Ashman and Alan Menken’s Little Shop of Horrors, running July 1-2, 2015. NOTE: A third performance has been added at 2pm on Thursday, July 2 in order to meet ticket demand. The production will be directed by Dick Scanlan, with choreography by Patricia Wilcox. Jeanine Tesori is the Artistic Director of Encores! Off-Center, and Chris Fenwick is Music Director. The show will mark the musical theater debuts of both Gyllenhaal and Killam.

Little Shop of Horrors is a sci-fi musical about Seymour Krelborn (Jake Gyllenhaal), a hapless florist shop worker who pursues a doomed romance with his ditzy, lovable co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene) by acquiring an R&B-singing plant (Chuck Cooper) that feeds on human blood. The production also stars Taran Killam as Audrey’s sadistic dentist boyfriend Orin Scrivello. An R&B girl group, The Urchins, provides commentary on the action and will feature Tracy Nicole Chapman, Marva Hicks and Ramona Keller. Little Shop is based on Roger Corman’s 1960 black comedyfilm by the same name. With book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken, the show premiered Off-Off-Broadway in 1982 before moving Off-Broadway to the Orpheum Theatre, where it played 2,209 performances, winning the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Musical. It was revived on Broadway in 2003, playing 372 performances at the Virginia Theatre.

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