NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Family Community Theatre is presenting Little Shop of Horrors July 18-21 at the Flag Theatre in Hutchinson.
"This takes place in around circa 1960 in New York, Skid Row," said Cliff Riggs, who is the voice of the puppets and helped design sets for the production. "It's down and out section, downtown-ish area in Mushnick's Flower Shop. It's a failing flower shop as bums, winos, just vagrants all over the place. You have Seymour, an orphan he took in off the street, and love interest Audrey that also works in the flower shop, and then it comes into the picture this pod, this plant, this unknowing species.Turns out it's a plant from outer space that has a liking to blood, but not just any blood, but to human blood, so the story just evolves from there."
You can still get tickets in advance at Absolutely Home at 15 East 14th and at the Bookends bookstore, or you can get them online at FamilyCommunityTheatre.org. The puppetry for the plants in the shop is very demanding.
"Pod 1 is the smallest of it," Riggs said. "Pod 2 is actually manipulated by Seymour, the actor who plays Seymour live on stage. Pods 3 and 4, the larger two, we have two puppeteers, one that handles Pod 1 and another one that handles Pod 3 and 4. Pod 3 and 4 is very, very physically taxing, so if you come see the show, you'll sit out there and just be blown away as I am every night from backstage watching these individuals manipulate these massive, massive puppets."
FCT actually rented the puppets from Southwestern College, as the school rents their Little Shop puppets out regularly.
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