Howard Ashman: "Little Shop of Horrors"

To celebrate forty years of "Little Shop," NPR has released a Tiny Desk Alan Menken concert, and it's worth seeing.

You're reminded of the unforgettable Menken/Ashman characters: the sadistic Elvis dentist, the scheming alien cabbage plant, the struggling heart-of-gold heroine. Menken has excellent "backstage" stories: He used laughing gas as a weapon because his own father had devoted his life to the study of laughing gas, he chose a small cast because Ashman insisted (the previous large-cast effort had been a flop), he recognized Audrey's "I Want" song as a major piece of writing (and he later thought of the Little Mermaid's "I Want" song as a piece *very similar* to "Somewhere That's Green," a piece called "Somewhere That's Wet").

The clip is fun because of Christian Borle, but also because of Menken, who is a living legend and a walking history book. Marc and I have watched twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymqKPz5kRXE

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