Man-eating plant the star of TPAC musical

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard

Jonathan Rayson as Seymour, with carnivorous plant Audrey II puppeteered by Michael Latini, Paul McGinnis and Marc Petrosino, perform in “Little Shop of Horrors” which will be at Nashville’s TPAC Jan. 25-30. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Bennett)

The hit Broadway musical, “Little Shop of Horrors,” will be coming to Nashville at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on Jan. 25-30. Called a “mean, green laugh machine” by Time Out New York, the show is a wonderfully entertaining blend of puppeteering and live actors that has wowed theater audiences around the country.

Marc Petrosino, who is one of three puppeteers that operates the carnivorous plant, dubbed Audrey II, which is at the center of the show’s plot, says the show is a joy to do, even though the audience never really sees him when he operates the elaborate puppet.

Petrosino, who received a B.A. in puppetry from Ithaca College, got into puppeteering by playing with puppets with his brother when they were younger.

“But I never thought I could make a career of it,” he said. “Then after doing some things in college, I switched majors and designed a puppetry major, you can design your own major at Ithaca, did an internship with the Jim Henson company, and kind of chased down the dream, made a lot of phone calls to people who were looking to hire puppeteers, and learned a lot from hand-on experience.”

This hands-on experience has taken him to some pretty heady venues, including working on “Little Shop” on Broadway, Basil Twist’s “Petrushka” at Lincoln Center, “Music of the Animals” at Carnegie Hall and Comedy Central’s “Crank Yankers.” Petrosino just did some work on “Sesame Street” which he is very proud of since the late Jim Henson is one of his inspirations.

“I was very happy to be on ‘Sesame Street,'” he said.

Of course, performing at Carnegie Hall was a high point for Petrosino as well.

“It was mind-blowing,” he said. “Just to be on the same stage that Tchaikovsky, Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, and I mean just every great performer has been on that stage. It’s very humbling to walk out there.”

Petrosino says he enjoys playing Audrey II, though it is a challenge.

“There’s four different plant sizes,” he said, “and we manipulate three of them.”

The actor who plays Seymour operates the other one which represents the plant at its smallest size, but once the plant grows, it falls to Petrosino and his fellow puppeteers Michael Latini and Paul McGinnis to give life to Audrey II.

“We are inside the plant in some fashion,” he said, “whether it be just our hand or our whole body.”

Petrosino says being in “Little Shop” has been a great experience.

“I’m not a big fan of musicals in general,” he said, “but I love this show. It is so well written. Very funny, very smart, it’s very tight. You know a lot of shows have a lot of fluff in them, but with this show everything pushes the story along. And it’s been a dream of mine ever since I started puppeteering to be able to do “Little Shop” on Broadway. So I feel very lucky to have already done that.”

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster. Contact TPAC for more information and show times, or visit the TPAC Web site at www.tpac.org.