Understanding the Monster: Inside LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS with Puppet Coach Matthew Sitz
Our “Inside” series takes you behind the scenes of productions through blog posts written by the artists in the trenches. To read past “Inside” pieces, click here. By Matthew Sitz I’ve been a part of eight productions of Little Shop of Horrors at a myriad of theaters – and no...
LITTLE SHOP Makes for A Delectable Evening on Skid Row
American Blues Theater’s triumphant LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS will have Chicago audiences clamoring to head downtown to Skid Row. This intimately staged production has a full sound (with music director Austin Cook leading a four-piece band, you can feel the vibrations of the bass in the floor) and provides an all-encompassing, fully entertaining spectacle.
INSIDE LITTLE SHOP Part 2: Puppet Power!
This week we began working with the two larger Audrey Two puppets and we were all surprised at how big they truly are. Sarah E. Ross (Puppet Designer and Producer Manager) had warned us that the largest was approximately 8 feet tall and 5 feet wide, but actually seeing a puppet that large come to life in person was both thrilling and intimidating (for comparison: Jim Henson’s Big Bird is 8 feet tall). There remain a handful of questions and concerns about how to best share the stage with the large puppets that won’t be able to be fully solved until we’re in the space. For now, it’s just exciting that they look so amazing and that Matthew Sitz is such a natural at operating them.