Audrey, Replanted: Nikki M. James Grows a New Take in Little Shop of Horrors

Suddenly, Nikki! Tony winner Nikki M. James dreams of “Somewhere That’s Green” eight times a week in Little Shop of Horrors off-Broadway. Skid Row’s current Audrey sat down with Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek to detail her spin on the role, her 25th anniversary of being on Broadway and what’s in store for The Book of Mormon’s “Magical Mormon Mystery Week.”

James has played an 80-year-old man in a hometown production of A Christmas Carol and Dolly Levi at 17-years-young in high school. Her amateur career was age-defying, gender-defying and menopausal. Despite all of this, James just could not picture herself playing the flighty and warm-hearted Audrey. “It's a dream I dared not to have,” she says in a matter-of-fact, but heartbreaking way. Perhaps this is because the original screenplay for Little Shop describes Audrey as, “The bleached-blond, Billie-Dawn-like secret love of [Seymour]’s life. If you took Judy Holiday, Carol Channing, Marilyn Monroe and Goldie Hawn, removed their education and feelings of self-worth, dressed them in spiked heels and a short black dress and then shook them up in a test tube to extract what’s sweetest and most vulnerable—that’d be Audrey.”

The description that Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. provided for their 2024 production is much better: “A woman who works at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists. She likes Seymour, but thinks she is beneath him as he becomes famous.” James had to shake away any feelings of imposter syndrome and look to the source material to find her Audrey. “When you get down to the text, Ashman and Menken didn't write, ‘She is a blonde, she is this,’” James says. “They just said she is a woman who's down on her luck in this sort of seedy neighborhood that takes place probably in New York, but we reference a place called Skid Row, which only exists in L.A.”

Her approach for Audrey began with a single question: “Without any archetypes, if I could not imagine Ellen Greene, who would she be to me?” James was able to find a unique version of Audrey that didn’t stray from the text, but was also true to herself. With the help of Little Shop’s fearless director Michael Mayer, she pieced Audrey together using herself as inspiration. “Nobody is a copy of another person; we're not doing imitations of each other, and that's what makes it work—it's what makes people come back,” James says. “So many people I meet have seen this production six or seven times, and they always say it's different.”

James is also meeting girls at the stage door of the Westside Theatre who "don't see the limits" that she may have placed on herself. For James, that actress was Audra McDonald. It wasn’t hearing McDonald sing or speak that made an impact, but seeing a woman of color do what James herself dreamed of doing. (And doing it six-time-Tony-winning well!)

James made her Broadway debut in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 2001. The show lasted just 21 regular performances. “All I ever wanted in life was to be a part of this community, and I got to be a part of it so early, and learn a tough lesson,” she recalls. Still, she remains optimistic: “My level of gratitude surpasses almost any of the other feelings that I have about it.”

Now in its 15th year, The Book of Mormon gave James three years on Broadway and a Tony Award to boot for originating the helpful and semi-naïve villager, Nabulungi. In honor of its anniversary, co-executive producer Anne Garefino called original cast members Rory O’Malley, Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells and James and floated the idea of the four returning to the Broadway company in celebration. After a quip from Rannells about Gad not being able to survive eight shows in a row, Magical Mormon Mystery Week was born. “For one week in June, we will appear on the Eugene O'Neill stage,” says James. “In some capacity for each of those eight performances, you won't know what you'll see and who will be there.”

As you can tell, James will be having a Uganda girl summer. If you can’t make it to Magical Mormon Mystery Week or to Skid Row, PBS Great Performances has you covered. On May 8, the historically accessible series will feature Shaina Taub’s Tony-winning musical Suffs for all to see. James starred as civil rights activist Ida B. Wells in the production, and describes the show as being “about the ways in which our democracy is amazing and also challenging.” She adds that, despite the challenges the suffragettes faced, the message remains that “we can make changes and that people can come together in community and change the course of history.”

Note: A fire at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on May 4 led to canceled performances of The Book of Mormon May 5–6, with a statement released saying that "the show will continue to work with theatre owners, ATG Entertainment, the FDNY and other relevant parties to assess the damage."

Watch the full interview below.

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