A Man-Eating Plant Takes Over Wilson Central: Borrowed Puppets Anchor the Fall Musical
The scene-stealer in Wilson Central High School's fall musical doesn't have a locker or a class schedule, and it never moves without a student's help. It is Audrey II, the sweet-talking, blood-hungry plant at the center of Little Shop of Horrors, and the school has landed the real thing: puppets lent by the New York company that licenses the show to theaters. Curtain goes up Thursday, Oct. 15.
The loan is a bigger deal than it sounds. Audrey II is not one prop but a family of them, a pot-sized sprout that grows, scene by scene, into a creature that fills the stage. Building that progression from scratch is one of the hardest technical jobs in any production of the show, and it is the reason the plant tends to make or break the evening. At Wilson Central, student puppeteers operate the plant while another student supplies its singing and talking, so voice and movement have to land together on every lunge and snap of the jaws. The school's theater teacher, Katharine Ray, has spoken publicly about the puppets' arrival.
A Skid Row story with a long afterlife
For anyone who has only seen the plant in memes, the story is a small, strange classic. It began as a cheap 1960 horror-comedy film, then became a musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken that opened off-Off-Broadway in 1982. A timid flower-shop assistant named Seymour discovers an unusual plant, names it after the coworker he adores, and learns too late what it likes to eat. A trio of street-corner singers in the style of early-1960s girl groups narrates the whole thing, which is part of why the score is so easy to love and so much fun for a high school cast to sing.
It is also a show that leans hard on the people backstage. A plant that must appear to grow, cues that have to hit on the beat and a stage that keeps changing all depend on crew students as much as on the performers out front.
Before you go
Opening night is Thursday, Oct. 15. Showtimes, the length of the run and ticket prices were not part of the details available as of Oct. 8, so check with the school's theater program before you head out.
If the musical has you in a fall mood, the week around it is full: our weekly list of family things to do around Mt. Juliet and the fall and Halloween family guide for Mt. Juliet and Wilson County cover the rest, and Lebanon's Oktoberfest on Oct. 17 and 18 follows just two days after the curtain rises.
Image: illustrative, AI-generated – not the actual location.
