New theater company bringing 'Little Shop of Horrors' to Tucson stage

Tucson’s newest theater company is staging its third production in 18 months.

Saguaro City Music Theatre is mounting the musical comedy “Little Shop of Horrors” through Oct. 29 at the Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway, on the Arizona Schools for the Deaf and Blind campus.

“It was a great opportunity to offer a deliciously exciting Faustian tale of an evil man-eating plant on Friday the 13th,” said Saguaro City Artistic Director and cofounder Drew Humphrey. “It’s a story that, because it appears so frequently in other forms in our culture, is very familiar to everybody.”

The story of the florist who discovers a plant that feeds on human blood dates back to the 1960 Roger Corman film “Little Shop of Horrors.” The story was fantastical and silly and the perfect candidate for an off-Broadway musical adaptation by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman.

The show, featuring a professional cast and small band performing live, is a follow-up to Saguaro City’s production in June of “Seussical the Musical.” The company — which Tucson native Humphrey founded with his wife, Dena DiGiancinto, and Charlie Ingram after Humphrey and DiGiancinto moved to Tucson in fall 2021 — introduced itself with “It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” in December 2022.

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In addition to its professional theater side, Saguaro City Music Theatre offers musical theater training for youths with disabilities.

“We are able to get in kids who have never, ever had access to theater at all. They really love it and we are seeing kids get bit by the (theater) bug,” said DiGiancinto, who met Humphrey when they worked at St. Louis’s Variety Children’s Theater, which works with children with disabilities.

DiGiancinto, Saguaro City’s director of outreach and education, said some of those kids could be featured in the company’s holiday show “Matilda,” which runs Dec. 22-Jan. 7.

Tickets for “Little Shop of Horrors” are $25-$55 through saguarocity.org/tickets. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. The Oct. 29 show will be at 1 p.m.