Little Shop of Horrors, at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town, is a hoot and a holler filled with chutzpah. It’s also the most solid “audience show” you’re likely to see in San Diego this year, which means that it’s nearly immune to criticism.

Actually, it was ever thus. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s first musical effort ran for five years off-Broadway and has proved to be a favorite musical for amateur companies and schools to produce. Based on a Roger Corman spoof of the cheesy horror films that the Corman factory itself had been churning out, the film version of Little Shop became an instant cult classic, and the musical version simply took things to the next level. The musical sent Messrs. Menken and Ashman to the next level, as well, as it launched them on a career writing for Disney film (and later, stage) musicals of Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin.

The story is simple enough. Seymour Krelborn (Brandon Joel Maier) works in a Skid Row flower shop that, not-so-strangely enough, doesn’t do much business. He has eyes for another employee, Audrey (Melissa Fernandes), but she’s consumed in an abusive relationship with a dentist named Orin Scrivello (Geno Carr). Mr. Mushnik (Phil Johnson), the shop’s owner, is about to throw in the towel when Seymour presents him with a variation on a Dionaea muscipula, more commonly known as a Venus Fly Trap. The unusual plant (voiced by David McBean, performed by puppeteer Jacob Caltrider), which Seymour has named Audrey II, proves to be a huge media phenomenon and brings an overflow of business to the shop. But, Audrey II turns out to need fresh human blood to survive. Once drips from Seymour’s fingers are no longer enough, more drastic measures are needed.

The show spoofs a variety of cultural icons: there is the Elvis-like dentist (Mr. Carr), the Supremes-like girl group of a Greek chorus (Rhea Elizabeth de Armas, Cashae Monya, and Heather Paton), and Mushnik’s best clients are members of the Shiva family, “who keep dropping like flies.” It’s inspired silliness, and cast and audience alike easily get into the act.

Director Sean Murray has let his designers go wild so that his actors don’t have to. The color scheme follows variations on black-and-white with occasional bursts of color infused, all the better to set off the fabulously multi-colored Audrey II (whose home base is Monkey Boys Productions, in Bristol, Pennsylvania). Sean Fanning’s set swivels to provide a street scene or the interior of the flower shop, Chris Rynne’s lighting emphasizes shadows (though, the flower case fluorescents distract whenever they go on and off), and Bonnie L. Durben’s properties add clever touches to the design. George Yé’s sound design gets out of kilter when Mr. McBean is singing, but that flaw can be fixed easily.

It is Shirley Pierson’s costumes that are the star of the show, however. Ranging from Seymour’s checks-against-stripes, to Audrey’s fashion misstatements, to floor-length white evening dresses and sparkly blood red blouses for the Greek chorus, the costumes provide those infusions of color on the deliberately bland scenic design and also manage to make fashion statements. Who knew, for example, that grey sneakers could look so cool? Cygnet should sell them in the lobby – they’d be snapped up quickly.

The performers all sing strongly (credit music director Tim McKnight) and dance cleverly and energetically (credit choreographer James Vasquez), but Melissa. Fernandes proves to be the standout. An actress who lights up the stage in any production in which she is cast, Ms. Fernandes gets to sing two of the best songs in the show, “Somewhere That’s Green,” and “Suddenly, Seymour,” and she holds the audience in particular thrall when doing so.

But, then, it’s an audience show, and word-of-mouth, not reviews, will tell the tale. The production runs through September 11.

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