by Mickey Redlingshafer

The musical “Little Shop of Horrors” will debut Nov. 7-10 in the M&A auditorium, with junior Katherine Viviano and Rockhurst seniors Drew Jurden and Ian VonFange holding prominent positions. Although these boys, and others from surrounding schools, and STA girls are portraying important characters, the most important character of the show is not a human at all–it’s a plant.

According to drama teacher Shana Prentiss, the whole musical “Little Shop of Horrors” follows the story of a plant that begins to grow, talk and eat humans.

“The plant is the most important character in the entire production,” said Prentiss. “It is important it looks a certain way.”

According to Prentiss, STA students usually make the entire sets for shows, but in this case they are going to need to rent the plant.

“I am renting [the plant],” said Prentiss. “It is essential it looks a certain way, and it would be very difficult to create it [like] that.To me the most important thing is that [the plant] has a strong presence. It has to be big, it has to have personality and it is essential it makes a statement.“

According to Prentiss, she rented the plant from UMKC, who put on “Little Shop of Horrors” last spring and made a 9 foot plant themselves.

[I like UMKC’s plant because] they made their own,” Prentiss said. “And it is a little different than what is traditionally used.”

According to Prentiss, senior Ruby Dibble was cast as the voice of the plant, and Rockhurst senior Sage Mason will be the puppeteer. As the show progresses, the plant grows, so there are four different plant props Mason will work with.

“[There are] four different plants,” Prentiss said. “It starts as a hand puppet pod. Then it becomes a larger [hand puppet]. Then there is a third [plant] where Sage will be sitting in a pot. The final one is the whole big thing. It is a seat built inside [of the plant] and it has controls that control the movement of the mouth.”

According to Mason he is happy to be playing the plant, which he thinks looks like agiantvenus fly trap with lips.

“It is going to be very hot and sweaty in the plant but I can fix that with short shorts, a bro tank and a sweatband,” Mason said. “I am most excited to eat my fellow cast members.”

According to Dibble, Prentiss has decided to play the character of the plant in an untraditional way.

“The plant is usually like a big black guy’s voice, but we’re doing it differently, obviously because I’m a girl,” Dibble said. “[The voice] is going to be more seductive than usually played. During auditions, Prentiss asked for a more seductive-pleading than threatening voice.”

According to Dibble, the plant sings a couple times in the musical. She enjoys all the music, but is especially excited for her songs, because they are different from what she normally sings in choir.

“I belt a lot,” Dibble said. “It is very poppy. The songs are really fun and really soulful and its different than my normal [songs]. They are sassy and fun songs so I like [them].”

According to Dibble, Mason and Prentiss, they are all excited for the musical and anticipate it to be very good.

“I am really excited,” Dibble said. “It’s my favorite musical, and Prentiss cast it very well.