Download - Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe

Little Shop of Horrors
Play Notes
Little Shop of Horrors is based on a 1960s low-budget horror movie of the same name. The black and white
film was written by Charles B. Griffith, directed by Roger Corman, and starred Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph,
Jack Nicholson and Mel Welles.
Composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman adapted the movie to the stage and made it a comedy
horror rock musical. It premiered Off-Broadway in 1982. The score features early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop
and early Motown music. Little Shop of Horrors received rave reviews and a number of awards, including the
New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical of 1982-83
Little Shop of Horrors was transformed into a motion picture by Frank Oz in 1986, subsequently winning the
musical duo their first Academy Award nomination. The play is performed in venues around the world and, as
recently as 2003, was revived on Broadway. It is one of the longest running off-Broadway musical of all time.
Howard Ashman
Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1950, Howard Ashman was a highly successful lyricist, librettist, playwright,
and director. He received his MFA from Indiana University before moving to New York in 1974. Two years
later, Ashman teamed with Alan Menken for the first time writing and directing a musical version of Kurt
Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. In 1982 he conceived and, with Menken, wrote the Little Shop of
Horrors.
Ashman was pivotal in the renaissance of Disney animated musicals and in the development of Disney’s The
Little Mermaid (Producer and Lyrics), Beauty and the Beast (Executive Producer and Lyrics) and Aladdin
(Lyrics), all with music by Alan Menken.. The duo won an Oscar for Best Song “Under the Sea,” from The
Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Motion Picture, gained him his first executive producing credit with Disney. The film's title song won him,
along with Menken, a second Oscar. The Off-Broadway production of the show transferred to Broadway in
1994.
Ashman’s numerous awards include two Oscars, two Golden Globes, four Grammys, a Drama Desk and a
London Evening Standard. He died in 1991 at age 40.
Alan Menken
Alan Menken was born in 1949 in New Rochelle, New York. A graduate of New York University, he is best
known for his numerous scores for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Menken won two
Academy Awards in the Best Original Score and Best Song categories for each of the following films: The
Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas. He penned such popular songs as “Whole
New World” (from Aladdin) and “Colors of the Wind” (Pocahontas).
Menken also composed the scores for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Hercules, The Last Castle, Home On
The Range, Enchanted, and Tangled. More recently he composed music for Broadway’s Aladdin, Newsies, The
Musical, for which he won a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award in 2012, and Sister Act. Having won a total
of eight Oscars, he has garnered more Oscars than any other living composer and has been Oscar-nominated a
total of nineteen times.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0579678/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/production.php?id=2869
http://howardashman.com/about-bio.html
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/alan-menken-mn0000508141/biography