Somewhere That's Green! Ellen Greene Talks Encores! LITTLE SHOP, Jake Gyllenhaal & More

Ellen Greene reflects on her recent success and her most memorable role!

Iconic original star of cult musical comedy classic LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, Ellen Greene, opens up about the recent sold-out Encores! Off-Center special concert event presented earlier this month co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal as well as much more as part of a new interview with Gay City News, available here.

Greene candidly shares, "This past year has been studying LITTLE SHOP because I don't want to disappoint anyone. I'm so excited because I want Howard to live again, because I am his LITTLE SHOP. I left here in 1996 because it was the end of my marriage to my dear Tibor, whom I'm still very close with. The 1990s were very exciting: I got married, but then deaths started to happen. Howard was the first to go in 1991, and Peter Allen in 1992. It was one after another one, either getting sick, or in the middle of it, or dying, and that pattern kept going nonstop. All these major players of my life, so many, and finally after I sang at the Bottom Line for Peter, in 1992, I basically stopped singing. My heart started going into my throat. When Don Palladino died, I think in 1996, that was it for me. Joe [Papp] had gone and there were so many ghosts that I'd been near to through all these diseases, because I don't believe in not being there for people. Are you ambitious or do you decide to be an authentic person? And also your work is better if you are a person as opposed to the other. But there were just so many, and then my husband was overwhelmed and he got into heroin. I saved his life, and he's remarried and has a child. My second husband, Christian Klikovits, who is my musical partner, got me to sing again in 2001. And now it's great to be at Encores! working with [summer director] Jeanine Tesori with whom I have such history. I'm so glad she got the Tony [for the "Fun Home" score], and to be with her ad Dick Scanlan and Jake [Gyllenhaal]! I'm not going to hold his beauty and his youth and his height against him! [laughs] You know, I just say it's okay!"

Recounting the genesis of the show, Greene offers, "Originally, when we were shopping for theaters, we first did it at this very small theater upstairs, over this whorehouse on Fifth Avenue and I remember it was very warm. We had to take off our sweaters, but Cameron Mackintosh came, who became our London producer, and the Shuberts, and it was quite exciting with so many people there and producers starting a bidding war. We had the month of June to relocate, and we looked at other theaters, and came to the conclusion that we could book it on Broadway and maybe not run as long, or be Off-Broadway and run forever, and we found the Orpheum downtown. They wanted to revamp the theater, so Howard [Ashman, the show's lyricist] sent me away to relax on Fire Island, [sings] 'where the boys are.' And it was fun, and then we came back, and it was magical how it was put together so quickly and so surprising. Howard let me do so much; he got me and I got him."

Check out the original article on the matter here.

Also, check out my extensive InDepth InterView with Ellen Greene for even more, available here.

View even more of BroadwayWorld's LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS coverage here.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

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