Just in time for the spooky season, Lake Worth Playhouse dares to feed their ambition by showing a mightily-portrayed production of Little Shop of Horrors. With a number of notable improvements, including a PhD director in Christy Rodriguez de Conte, Lake Worth is having a meteoric rise, and they welcome plantlike aliens into their ranks on that ascent. Little Shop captures the camp, the laughs, and the terror that make this quirky musical one of the best ever.
The last time I was in the seats of Lake Worth Playhouse, the nonprofit organization and community theater held an unofficial opening to their 2025-2026 season with a daring production of HAIR. For Little Shop, I found myself trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. The theater had a makeover sometime since July! Through the efforts of the theater’s staff, all of the seating in the mainstage theater has had a complete overhaul; a complete replacement. The walls got a paintjob. There are LED strips guiding the lines for patrons. As someone who has spent a little time under that antique roof, I can see the momentum gaining, the inertia growing, fed at a sustainable rate.
This air of transformation held in the theater like a miasma. One could feel that the theater has begun to take a serious step to becoming a professional company with its rotating crew of talent, which feels like a bit more than a community theater. The community is still embraced but as their competence remains steady and their dedication to the art form remains pure, it’s not hard to imagine the if-but-when. And for a show Little Shop, the talent goes so far beyond the cast that takes up space on stage. We have to recognize the Technical Director Marty Mets, the Shop Foreman Bryan Wohlust, and the Lead Carpenter Ma Knoke. The Stage Managers, the Set Designer, the Scenic Painters, and the remaining carpenters deserve increasing respect. This set… wow.
Little Shop’s cast also felt like they were born to play their roles; their commitment was both impressive and added to the humor of the show. For those who don’t know, the show is dark, with themes of domestic violence and racism, but these elements are joked about–as if the world in its state is something that we must all accept. Brian Heredia as Seymour was phenomenal, and I don’t think I’ve seen someone do the role better. Kayla Asuoty as Audrey was an embodiment of professionalism; great stuff. Even Devin Clarke as Mr. Mushnik had substance, like he lived with that character for a while, wearing his coat and fitting just right.
