Step right in into the Little Shop Of Horrors.

This July, renowned theater company The Sandbox Collective have put up a local run of the famed off-Broadway musical number, Little Shop Of Horrors. A charmingly harrowing tale of struggle and a man-eating plant, the cult classic production follows the story of Seymour, a flower shop keeper who discovers a carnivorous plant. He names it Audrey II, after his co-worker and love of his life Audrey, and is soon dealt with one moral dilemma after another as he navigates fame, greed, and love.

Starring Karylle, Nyoy Volante, Sue Ramirez, and Reb Atadero, the local run of Little Shop is absurd in the best way possible. From the impeccable musical performances to the enticing storyline, the show is a charming production that will not only have you laughing to tears but also imparts a heartwarming story of aspiration and hope.

As the show reaches its final weekend (this July 27 and 28), Billboard Philippines sits down with director Toff De Venecia to talk about what it took to piece together a musical production, how art isn’t easy, the theater landscape in the country, and of course, why you should catch The Sandbox Collective’s Little Shop Of Horrors.

Can you describe the overall concept or vision you have for this production of Little Shop Of Horrors? What inspired your interpretation of the musical?

This staging was very much informed by what I did in 2011, when I had the opportunity to do this for Ateneo Blue Repertory. I loved the material, but we didn’t have a lot of resources to mount it then, so the biggest challenge really was how to portray the plant. What we did in the 2011 staging was we decided on an actor instead of a giant puppet, and it actually really worked for our particular staging. People kind of embraced this novel idea of a Little Shop Of Horrors with an actor for the role of Audrey II. For this one, we wanted to still bring out the essence of the Ateneo Blue Repertory production, but elevate it or level it up. 

This might be a spoiler for the audiences, but yeah, there’s an actor and there’s puppetry involved. The puppets actually are designed by Kayla Teodoro, who is a puppet designer working currently in the West End. She’s Associate Puppet Designer right now for 101 Dalmatians: The Musical, and she has done extensive work on puppetry both in London and in Japan, but she actually started out as our intern in Sandbox back in 2014. It was a good homecoming for her to be working in this production. So, in conversation, we kind of find ways to be able to still do the puppetry, but also push the concept by including the actor. 

Another one is the style of this production is theater of the absurd, which is really a theatrical movement that I’m very much inspired by conceptually. Essentially, I really resonate with theater of the absurd works and so, we wanted this Little Shop to be sort of like musical theater of the absurd. You see that in a lot of the stylistic choices for the production, most especially that theater of the absurd visually is most associated with surrealism. There’s a lot of surrealist elements in this production which adds to the whimsy and the uniqueness of this particular staging so we’re very, very happy that the reception has been great so far from our audiences in the past weekends.

Photographed by Kieran Punay

How did you draw inspiration from the original off-Broadway production or other previous adaptations of Little Shop Of Horrors?

Not really, to be honest. Most of the productions I’ve seen, they’ve been pretty much traditional stagings, but then myself as a director, I do like to think outside of the box. I always want to try to innovate and push the boundaries of staging here in the Philippines. Sandbox always tries to present groundbreaking, cutting-edge theatrical work so while this isn’t necessarily a new production — at least in terms of staging or presenting it — we wanted to do something different. 

For every kind of production, whether it’s original Filipino material or a Broadway or off-Broadway IP, you stand on the shoulders of those that came before you. I read the history of Little Shop, and I know how special this is to the creators, so we want to be able to do right by them by honoring their legacy, but also pushing the boundaries of how it was staged. For that time, back in the ’80s, this was really something so different from everything that was being done on Broadway and so we wanted to also honor that bravado and spirit that the creators had by doing our own take on Little Shop. 

How did you approach arranging the music for this particular production? How did you use music to highlight the relationships between characters in Little Shop Of Horrors?

Well, the musical arrangement for the show is basically what was provided by the licensor when we applied for the rights to be able to produce it locally. We have a brilliant musical director, Ejay Yatco, who has a five-piece band that he conducts during the show. We also worked in this show together back in 2011 with the Ateneo Blue Repertory, so this is really special to both of us. 

I’ve always been a fan of Ejay’s talent. He really has a way of bringing out the the vocal performances in the cast and also creating such a musical soundscape for our shows that you’re able to feel its fullness, but also feel his love sort of like trickling in and penetrating the music. So, we didn’t necessarily rearrange or re-orchestrate any of the music, but of course, the variable is really in the delivery of the cast. I must say the cast really sings the hell out of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s iconic Little Shop of Horrors score. 

Photographed by Kieran Punay

Is there a particular song or moment in the musical that resonates with you personally?

It’s hard to choose a favorite number in this show because even numbers like “Mushnik & Son” performed by Audie Gemora and the character of Seymour — so that’s either Nyoy Volante or Reb Atadero — which I was never really a fan of before, but because of how brilliantly our actors perform this number and the orchestrations of Ejay and the band, as well as the choreography of Stephen Viñas, it’s become one of my favorite numbers in the show all of a sudden. This is sort of like an alchemy of different things that make a number stand out. 

For me, the goosebump-inducing numbers are “Feed Me,” which is the number or the song between the plant Audrey II and Seymour. Of course, with the way we stage it, it’s always like a big gasp moment for the audiences — I don’t want to spoil that so I hope everybody will come catch Little Shop, especially on our closing weekend. I do love that number very much. Little Shop is basically a pastiche of many different genres but the soul, funk, Motown-ness of “Feed Me” is just so rousing so I just love seeing that number performed on stage. 

My other favorite is “Skid Row (Downtown).” That’s the second number where the whole company laments about their circumstances in Skid Row and all of them wanting to escape and dreaming of a better life. That number is always so emotional for me; I usually get so teary-eyed when everybody is performing that song. 

How did you collaborate with other creative team members to bring the musical to life?

Theater is a village. It takes a village to mount any kind of production, so really, the foundation of any kind of theatrical experience is collaboration. It’s been really fun collaborating with our puppet designer, Kayla Teodoro. [Also] with our scenographer, who handled both set and costumes, Mio Infante. I kind of threw him a curveball for this particular production and he rose to the occasion, he came up with a mise-en-scène that’s really just super out of the box and out of this world, and very surrealist.

My constants really are Stephen Viñas, our choreographer and Ejay Yatco, our musical director — I always collaborate with them for any of my shows so we’re able to read each other’s minds already on anything. I must say. Eliza Aurelio, our hair and makeup designer, has also really pulled out all the stops for this show, as well as our lighting designer Joseph Matheu and our projections designer Joee Mejias. 

We tend to use the process of viewpoints in collaboration, which is a process by which we unlock our creativity. There is no wrong answer in the process of birthing this material, and in brainstorming, we throw dramaturgical curve balls to the team, and then in conversation, we’re able to come up with a collaborative solution to any particular moment or challenge in the show. It’s been really great collaborating with everyone. It’s one of my favorite things to do when I’m directing a show, actually. 

You mentioned that producing a local run of Little Shop of Horrors has always been your dream. How does it feel to have it have this dream come true?

I am over the moon, really. I’m just so grateful. It’s really an honor and a privilege to help bring this show to life, that it’s been received so well, and that we’ve created a company where love is very apparent and present. There’s so much care and concern and love amongst all the company members of this particular show. We’re all kind of sad to be honest that it’s about to end but the last two months, including the rehearsal period, has really been such a joy, and it’s been a gift. I’m really so honored, thankful, and blessed.

Photographed by Kieran Punay

What do you hope audiences take away when watching The Sandbox Collective’s Little Shop Of Horrors?

I hope that they would be entertained. I hope that they would have fun with the material; that’s been the general takeaway of most people. Most people appreciate the innovation that we introduced in this very quirky reimagining of this material, and some people also had a lot of really deep takeaways.

When I was doing my preliminary research on the show, one of the apparent themes is really late-stage capitalism, the temptation of man, greed, ambition, what a protagonist like Seymour is willing to do to be able to win the love of his life, and the compromises that everybody in the show is willing to do to be able to get to their objective or to get further along in life. The show is very much a critique of late-stage capitalism. There’s been a lot of reflection from our audience members about those themes. When National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts, Ricky Lee, watched during the preview, that was his takeaway.

There’s something in the show for everyone — if you’re looking for something political in the experience, as it talks about late stage capitalism and violence, or if you’re looking to be entertained and just to have fun and laugh. It’s such a funny show; it’s a bloodthirsty musical comedy. There is camp, there’s horror, but it’s also really a comedy. People just end up laughing throughout the show, of course, crying also and getting horrified by certain moments in the show — it’s gallows humor. It’s really a roller coaster experience for everyone who will watch the show. 

What do you hope this production of Little Shop of Horrors will contribute to the broader musical theater landscape in the Philippines?

One, of course, [is] the bravery to be able to innovate existing intellectual property. If other theater companies will do local stagings or reimaginings of existing IP, I hope that everybody will be inspired to innovate, to level up, and to push the boundaries. There always is a fear with innovation. It could or could not be received well by the public or the critics, and already there is a hard knock life to doing theater in the Philippines — thankfully, [the audience has] really been growing and developing in the last few years since the pandemic — but it’s already hard to do. 

Art isn’t easy. You pour so much of your soul, and it becomes very much a personal endeavor, so innovation is always something that creators might shy away from, but we do need to innovate if we want to push the boundaries and level up what’s possible in the theater industry. 

Perhaps the other takeaway, while we didn’t really conceive Little Shop of Horrors, we just reimagined it in terms of the staging. Hopefully, this will inspire more of our playwrights to also approach and attack themes that are more overt about politics and the manner or tone by which the show is performed.

It is possible to lean into the politics of a show or for material through comedy, satire, or even something like camp. I remember talking to a decorated playwright after the show [who is] also [a] theater aficionado who also creates her own shows, and she was reminded about how it is still possible to discuss certain issues in society without being so overt and without being so heavy-handed about it, like it is possible to discuss issues through comedy, satire and camp. So, hopefully the experience of Little Shop will inspire people towards that particular type of experience as well. 

This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

Photographed by Kieran Punay of KLIQ INC. Art direction by Nicole Almero.