LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
This production of Little Shop of Horrors is a direct result of first conversation I had with the very first theatre student I met when I started at AUC in 2012. The first thing out of her mouth was, ‘You’re directing in the Spring? Can we do a musical?” This was the first of many times hearing this. My answer to her then was ‘I don’t know.’ My answer to her now will be what you see on stage before you this evening.
Producing a play is a great deal of work on it’s own. Producing a musical is more so. The physical demands on costumes, sets, and lights tend to be greater because musicals tend to have bigger casts and depend more upon spectacle than plays do. For performers there is now music to learn and practice as well as choreography in addition to all of the regular acting work. There is now a music director and an orchestra. As director, most of my time is spent working with the student performers on acting, staging, and storytelling, as well as guiding the various elements of the process as they come together at the end of production prior to opening night. Though the heads of the various teams involved in producing Little Shop are positions chiefly held by faculty and staff, most of what you see and hear tonight (and most of what you don’t) is the product of literally thousands of hours of time given freely on the part of students.
Unlike the faculty and staff they are not paid professionals and all but a few will earn no academic credit for their work and time on this project. They have been giving the time outside of their jobs (being students in pursuit of a degree) to make this show possible. It is a labor of love for them.
It is really their words that should be on this page of the program, not mine, because they are the real owners of the show, along with all of the other faculty and staff that have worked to produce it so that it can be given to you here tonight. And so, on behalf of all of them, the students, and on behalf of the faculty and staff we say THANK YOU for coming out to the theatre tonight, we hope you have a really good time.