Evan Rachel Wood and Darren Criss are joining the cast of the off-Broadway hit revival of Little Shop of Horrors.
Criss and Wood take over the roles of Seymour and Audrey from Corbin Bleu and Constance Wu on Jan. 30. The latter play their final performances—at the mercy of monstrous plant Audrey II—on Jan. 28.
The award-winning revival of the 1982 musical—with a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken, and directed by Michael Mayer—opened at the Westside Theatre in 2019 to rave reviews, including from The Daily Beast. The 2019 cast included Jonathan Groff, Christian Borle, and Tammy Blanchard.
ADVERTISEMENT
Wood’s breakout role was in Thirteen, and she has gone on to star in Westworld, Mildred Pierce, and is one half of the musical duo Evan + Zane, performing alongside Zane Carney. Criss, who found fame in Glee, won multiple awards—including a Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe—for his transfixing portrayal of Andrew Cunanan in Ryan Murphy’s limited series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Criss was most recently seen on Broadway last year in American Buffalo, opposite Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell.
Wood and Criss join castmates including Bryce Pinkham, Brad Oscar, Aaron Arnell Harrington, D’Kaylah Unique Whitley, Tiffany Renee Thompson, and Khadija Sankoh in Little Shop.
“The casting of this show has become one of the greatest joys of our lives. The fact that in year five, we continue to attract talent like Evan Rachel Wood and Darren Criss is a testament to Howard Ashman’s and Alan Menken’s Little Shop of Horrors being one of the finest achievements in musical theater, and to Michael Mayer’s perfectly and joyously staged production at the Westside Theatre,” the producers of Little Shop said in a statement. “As two of the most daring, enticing, and dynamic stars of their generation, we cannot wait to see the magic that real-life friends Evan and Darren bring to their roles.”
