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Mushnik’s has two new employees! Betsy Wolfe and Ethan Slater have officially stepped into the roles of Audrey and Seymour in the long-running Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre—and just a few weeks into their run, the pair is already having plenty of fun making the roles their own.
Wolfe and Slater recently joined BroadwayWorld’s Richard Ridge at the West Bank Cafe to chat about taking on the beloved musical, finding their chemistry together, and why audiences never quite know what they’re going to get from them onstage.
“I was excited in theory about doing the show because it’s a great show. Everybody loves it. It has a reputation of being an amazing place to work,” Slater explained. “And then when Betsy and I finally got to rehearse together, I became more excited to do it every night. It’s just been so fun.”
That rehearsal time was limited. Wolfe was still finishing her run in Death Becomes Her while Slater began learning the show, leaving them only a handful of days together before their first performance. But that compressed schedule seems to have helped create the spontaneity that has quickly become one of their favorite parts of the experience.
“You kind of don’t ever know what we’re going to do,” Wolfe said. “I think that’s what actually is really fun about this pairing. I do occasionally see [the urchins] looking over like, ‘What are they doing tonight?’ And I take great pride in that, actually—that it’s interesting enough to want to watch.”
For Slater, that freedom comes from the trust he has developed with Wolfe and the rest of the company.
“I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen that Reg [Rogers] and Betsy are really fun to be onstage with,” he said. “I feel really safe. They’ve got me. Whatever they do will be funnier than what I do, and I have no clue what is going to come out of their mouths—the volume, the intensity. The lines will come out… hopefully some semblance of the lines that were written.”
Watch the full interview with Wolfe and Slater as they talk more about joining Little Shop of Horrors, meeting the show’s devoted fans, stage door adventures, and plenty more!
