Little Shop of Horrors

The most important projects are not always the favourites. Such is the case with my second year show, Little Shop of Horrors. Certainly fun, but brutally humbling and very much a learning experience.

Off the back of Legally Blonde, the pressure I put on myself to replicate that performance was overwhelming. Frequently I was hard on myself for mistakes, and overall did not give myself the psychological environment to grow. While the final product on stage certainly wasn’t a personal disappointment, even the small things left me feeling bitter.

But looking back now, it really was the most crucial part of my development as a person and performer. While of course, pursuing perfection is still a principle of mine in theatre, it really taught me to have fun with the process, and have the room to laugh at yourself.

Perhaps even more important was learning to not numb out my emotions to remove the stress I felt. Giving myself the room to feel everything I had to feel, disappointment, frustration, and talk about those openly. Then, I could feel the good when the process had been seen through. This in particular has stayed with me since.

In other departments, I found out that I actually had a fair amount of merit for graphic design, from more causal image editing growing up. These designs were awesome: Fairly rudimentary, but laid the foundations for the work I’ve done for Tick, Tick… BOOM!’s art. I’ve always found graphic work incredibly fun, and definitely hope to do more after uni concludes!

Never the less, while Little Shop frustrated me to no end, what it left me with will serve me forever, and I am forever in debt to it. Besides, its a darn good musical. The music is honestly wonderful, and has deceptively clever, underrated writing.