More than 190 performers aged between 9 and 21 have spent two weeks rehearsing the production before its run from Thursday 13th August to Saturday 15th August.
The annual Summer Youth Project has been running since 1994 and gives young people the chance to work alongside professional directors, choreographers, musicians and technical staff to stage a full-scale musical.
This year’s production features one standout attraction, a giant man-eating plant.
Oli Webb, Creative Learning Manager, said:
“We’ve got Little Shop of Horrors, which is an amazing musical written in the 80s about the kind of 1950s B movies all coming together.
“We have an enormous, and when I say enormous, I mean enormous, man-eating plant on stage, which we’re not going to reveal just yet. You have to come and watch it to find it.”
He added:
“It’s a beautiful story about love and what you will do for love, and then the things that go wrong.”
The project has introduced hundreds of young people to performing in a professional theatre over the last three decades, with many former cast members going on to careers in the performing arts.
Despite having only two weeks to prepare the show, Webb said the cast consistently impresses him.
“It shocks me every year how quickly they pick everything up,” he said.
“We start on the Monday, and then by the Saturday they’ve rehearsed the entire show. They’ve blocked it. They know what they’re doing. They have Sunday off, and then back on Monday we go into technical rehearsals with all the set, lights and sound before opening night.”
Among the principal cast is Lily Moir, who plays the carnivorous plant Audrey II.
Now taking part in her fifth Summer Youth Project, she said the experience has played a major role in shaping her ambitions.
“I started doing it with Legally Blonde. I heard about it at school and thought it sounded fun.
“Ever since doing that, I had so much fun and wanted to keep coming back year after year. Now I get to play a principal part, which is really cool.”
She said performing in a professional venue makes the project stand out.
“It’s really exciting to experience working in a professional environment, with a professional tech team, professional orchestra and professional creative team. It’s such an amazing opportunity and it really makes you realise why you’ve gone into this industry.”
She added: “Normally it’s quite a small cast, so we’ve made some changes to accommodate the larger cast, and the puppets for Audrey II are really cool.”
David Scott, who plays dentist Orin Scrivello, said he decided to audition after hearing positive feedback from friends.
“A lot of my friends have done SYP before, and I’d heard about it from school. I thought this would be a great opportunity.”
Asked why audiences should see the production, he said: “It’s a plant eating people. What’s not to love?
“It’s just so much fun, and the cast are hilarious. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.”
Rehearsals:
Written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, Little Shop of Horrors follows florist Seymour as he discovers a mysterious plant that offers fame, fortune and romance, but at a terrifying cost.
The production runs at the Wyvern Theatre from Thursday 13th August to Saturday 15th August, with five performances across the three days. Tickets are available through www.swindontheatres.co.uk.
