By Bob Keeler
Staff Writer

“Feed me.”

Oh yeah, Audrey II’s about to eat well.

Dylan Van Arsdale, of Silverdale, plays Orin in the “Little Shop of Horrors” 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Pennridge High School auditorium, so he knows all about the man-eating plant in the show.

“I’m the first victim,” Van Arsdale said.

Unlike some of the later plant meals, though, Orin doesn’t go into the plant whole. He’s chopped up first.

“My mom, she’s the prop lady, she had to make the bloody version of her son,” Van Arsdale, who will be a senior when classes start again in the fall, said. “She said it was fun.”

The props were prepared at the Van Arsdale home, where Dylan got a chance to see things such as dummies of his chopped off legs.

“I’ll see my arm on the dining room table,” he said.

Orin, the sadistic, girlfriend-abusing dentist he plays is “completely, unmitigated evil,” Van Arsdale said.

“It’s completely opposite of who I am,” he said.

“I’m so non-confrontational, but it’s so much fun to let that side out,” Van Arsdale said. “I guess being the evil, greasy person gets it out of my system.”

As a mother, it’s hard to see her daughter, Erin Price, who plays Audrey, being abused by Van Arsdale’s character, but the two are actually good friends, Brenda Price, one of the parent volunteers with the show, said.

“We always hug afterwards. We make up,” Van Arsdale said.

Audrey, her character in the show is “ditzy and has low self-esteem, but by the end finds herself,” said Price, of Perkasie, who will be a senior this fall at Pennridge.

The dark comedy musical is based on the 1960 movie.

“Although it seems like something that would be scary, it’s hilarious,” Erin Price said of the show.

“This is a classic musical theater show,” said Zach Costa, of Perkasie, who will be a senior in the fall and who plays the poor, mild-mannered Seymour who discovers and helps Audrey II grow while attracting the love of his co-worker Audrey, but ultimately recognizes the danger of the plant.

“It’s one of the funnest shows to watch and perform,” Costa said. “The giant plant is really fun to perform beside.”

“The music is so catchy,” Price said. “The characters are larger than life.”

“It’s just a great group of characters,” said Samantha Pasquale Brannon, a voice teacher and Pennridge graduate who with her husband Tad Brannon has been heading up the STARS productions at the high school for the past few years.

Initially, they thought it would be for just one show, but now it’s become more long-term.

“It just sort of evolved into this community group experience, and it’s terrific,” Brannon said. “It’s evolved into a little STARS family.”

Although not part of the show, the STARS family recently gained another member with the birth less than two months ago of Max, who joined four-year-old Cooper in the Brannon family.

Along with having good characters, “Little Shop of Horrors” has female and male roles and a small enough cast to be a summer show, Brannon said. With about 20 people appearing on stage, the show has less than half the amount of people as productions during the school year, when there can be 50 to 70. The summer show also has to be prepared for and completed within a four week timespan, compared to the four months available for the spring and fall shows.

Pennridge graduate C. Jameson Bradley did the set design for the show, with parents helping out with things such as painting sets and creating props.

“We reuse everything, so there’s stuff from all our shows,” said Karen Van Arsdale, Dylan’s mother and the show’s stage decorator.

“A lot of it was from ‘The Music Man,’” said Brenda Price.

One thing that isn’t returning from a previous Pennridge show, though, is Audrey II.

“The plant was actually rented,” Van Arsdale said.

The legs she made to portray her son’s dismembered body were constructed out of scrap vinyl, stuffed with materials taken from the trash and completed with a pair of boots from a thrift store.

“That only cost me like $2 if you count the spray paint,” Van Arsdale said.

A prop machete in the play came from a transformed toy sword picked up at a dollar store.

The work she and others do backstage isn’t really only about building sets, although that’s part of it, she said.

“We are basically shoppers, recyclists,” Van Arsdale said.

Adam Turck, of Sellersville, a 2008 Pennridge graduate now majoring in drama at Ithaca College, portrays Mr. Mushnik in the show. Mushnik is the owner of the Skid Row flower shop at which Audrey II, portrayed by Tad Brannon, is raised and becomes an attraction.

“This is the fifth show I’ve done with Sam and Tad,” Turck said. Previous performances have been in last summer’s “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” a talent review two summers ago, “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

Costa, who started in theater productions in seventh grade, said he plans to continue in community theater in the future and “let life roll me along as it wants to.”

“I’ve been doing theater stuff since the third grade,” said Erin Price, who plans to make a career of music education.

Dylan Van Arsdale, who started in theater in fourth grade, said he plans to continue with it, but also may be moving into another entertainment venue.

“I’m gonna try to go into films, so if it crosses over at some point, all the better,” he said.

Tickets to the shows are $8 each and may be purchased by e-mailing tickets@starsofbuckscounty.com, in the high school’s main lobby between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 5 and 6, or at the door the nights of the show. Seating is not reserved. Doors open 30 minutes before the 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 7 and 8 showtimes.

“It’s a comedy, but it’s a love story. It’s a little bit of everything,” Brenda Price said in describing the show.

Just be careful when you go.

“Feed Me.”

“(Git It)”