Philadelphia Weekly

Share this Story:

Rejoice and be plaid: Steve Pacek stars as Seymour.

In the current economic climate many of the area’s theaters are presenting smaller, more intimate plays and musicals. With smaller casts and less elaborate sets, the shows can be staged at a reasonable cost.

There is, however, another option. Companies can join forces to co-produce, a tactic adopted by 11th Hour Theatre Company and Theatre Horizon for their production of Little Shop of Horrors .

According to 11th Hour’s producing artistic director Michael O’Brien, the company had wanted to stage Little Shop for some time. However, with an annual budget of $120,000, the musical’s size made the expense daunting. Horizon and 11th Hour joined forces when they discovered they shared a vision of presenting a grittier, more realistic version of Little Shop , which is often staged as a campy romance about a nerdy boy, a pretty girl and the bloodthirsty plant that comes between them.

At the outset, the two companies agreed to collaborate on the artistic side, while the production elements would be handled by each company separately. After opening in Norristown in September, the production moves to the Independence Black Box at the Prince Music Theater. Like many companies, 11th Hour rents venues for their productions.

O’Brien says co-productions allow 11th Hour to stage shows that would otherwise exceed their financial capabilities. “ Reefer Madness had a cast of 12 and the cast of Little Shop is nine, plus stage management, production team and three musicians. For a small company, this would be impossible for us to do on our own,” says O’Brien.

Cost isn’t the only advantage for companies staging co-productions. Theatre Horizon co-artistic director Erin Reilly cites “the exchange of ideas” as being a considerable benefit. “A co-production allows you to get intimately acquainted with another company’s artistic vision and decision-making process, which inspires you to reexamine your own,” Reilly explains. “We admired 11th Hour’s focus on putting vocalists at the heart of the show, and that affected the way we shaped our current production, Holiday Show .”

For a co-production to be successful, O’Brien feels it’s paramount that the companies put the show first. “I think as long as you are working with a company that wants to put out a great product and respects the artistry of the production team, the product will be great. You always want to be very clear with what you as a company are looking to achieve, but also mindful that the other company may do things a different way than you,” he says.

Co-productions, however, aren’t always as harmonious as the union between 11th Hour and Horizon. Reilly describes the arrangement as similar to a “short-term marriage” and, like any marriage, there are bound to be problems. Battles can erupt over finances as well as the artistic direction of the project, and actors may leave for other gigs. (The show’s lead actress, Maggie Lakis, left Little Shop for an off-Broadway production of Avenue Q and is being replaced by Melinda Bass.)

Even if the marriage is a happy one, there is still the problem of staging the production in two venues. Although a co-production allows for additional rehearsal time to, in director Megan Nicole O’Brien’s words, “tweak anything that we didn’t love the first time around,” each space poses new challenges. For Little Shop, the production moved from a proscenium theatre to a modified thrust stage in the Prince’s Black Box. “I approach (the two venues) by trying to have everything transition well, but fit both spaces individually,” explains O’Brien. “That usually means extra work for me, my choreographer and the actors, but it also means it’s a better show in both spaces.” ■