Springbrook High School’s Drama department performed “Little Shop of Horrors” for this year’s spring musical. The department’s excellent performance of “Grease” last year set high expectations for this year. For the most part, “Little Shop of Horrors” did not disappoint.

The musical is about a florist named Seymour, portrayed by senior Ezra Hollander, who raises a man-eating plant.

The musical also stars freshman Lila Cooper as Audrey, Seymour’s love interest, senior Joshua Lucker as Mushnick, the owner of the flower shop, senior Zay Bushby as the voice of Audrey II, senior Lefeka Rubens as the man-eating plant, and sophomore Lily Wright as the puppeteers for Audrey II.

The show started with a shaky  performance by the Doo-Wop girls played by freshman Monica Joseph, sophomores Beatrice Sesay, Qayyimah Muhammad and Mellie Mesfin and junior Zoe Braddock.

    “The girls were having trouble harmonizing and staying in sync,” junior Sana Shah said.

Fortunately, their singing did improve greatly by the next song.

The microphones had problems that occurred throughout the night. While senior Ramsey Telhami was singing his solo song as Orin, Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, it was difficult to hear him. Also, several of the actors’ voices fluctuated from too loud to too quiet for a couple of seconds.

To be fair, I did watch the play on opening day and the cast and crew might have been nervous. The extremely talented cast made up for the small errors.

Hollander’s singing improved substantially this year when compared to his portrayal of Doody in last year’s production. Cooper is a fantastic actress with a practically perfect Jersey girl accent, and Bushby has a powerful voice suitable to portray a creepy talking plant. Lucker and Telhami offered comedic relief with their memorable one-liners.

The crew also did an amazing job, especially the set designers and painters.

“It was hard to believe that those brick walls weren’t real,” junior Jessica Ho said.

After watching “Little Shop of Horrors” I am excited to see what Springbrook’s Drama department has in store for next year’s spring musical.