After opening red hot in October 2019, Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre had a rough second half of 2022.

Box office sales fell short of the revival’s $180,000 to $200,000-a-week running costs in 27 of the final 31 weeks of the year. Operating losses for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s plant-based off-Broadway musical comedy, set in a Skid Row flower shop, totaled $734,000 over the seven months ended Jan. 1, 2023.

Such shortfalls can lead to closing notices. Instead, the producers distributed $1.2 million of profit to themselves, their investors and co-producers. That was on top of $1.9 million of profit paid out over the previous 15 months.Continue Reading