Technical problems? Check. Small cast and budget? Check. Time-crunch? Definitely.

These factors might seem to point towards an underwhelming production, but SCHS’s drama department has managed to produce “Little Shops of Horror”, a musical black-comedy worthy of much praise.

Starring a cast of the seasoned Mario Ramirez as Seymour, freshman Julia Kreisa as Audrey, and a delightfully evil puppet wielded by Robby Hodges and voiced by Monika Milani, Little Shops of Horror, playing tonight in the theater at 7 pm, is a delight to watch, featuring macabre humor and the voices of some of SCHS’s finest actors.

The show tells the tale of a hapless flower shop worker named Seymour who finds a talking plant and his willingness to do anything to get the girl. It is punctuated by catchy songs and a dark love story. Adding to the appeal is the chorus, composed of Lali Pizarro, Arianna Perez, and Gabrielle Blackhurst, who adds a 60s style flair to the show.

Another nice touch is Liam Curry as Orin, a sadistic dentist; Curry transcends his small frame to take on the part of the cold-hearted dentist convincingly, adding a comical flair as well.

It’s impressive that the show, where the actors deftly move and run across the stage as if they’ve been practicing on it for months, had a compressed rehearsal schedule in the theater for only two weeks; before that, actors rehearsed in the portables.

The path to success has not been easy. After three shows without a hitch, last night proved to be a struggle.

According to Aku Sorensen, the student director of the show, the stage lights broke down last night, leaving the play without a working lighting system. “There are no words to describe the emotional roller-coaster that was tonight. When I walked into the theater, I figured everything that could go wrong had over the last few days,” he said. The audience at last night’s show was left in the dark, waiting for 30 minutes, as the technical crew scrambled to get the show going.

Forced to coordinate the lighting of the show manually, Sorensen, along with a team of lighting technicians, the pit orchestra, and the production cast, managed to put on a show that still upheld to the tradition of strong musicals put on by the department. Even without the technical equipment to rely on, he said “Once the first notes toned, it all clicked. Even as the tech crew struggled to improvise clever lighting for each scene, the actors, the orchestra… They killed it. It was fantastic.”