'Little Shop' plants roots on Broadway

Revival to hit stage in January 2003

By ROBERT HOFLER

Twenty years after its downtown premiere, "The Little Shop of Horrors" is relocating uptown for Broadway biz.

The 1982 tuner by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman opened at the WPA Theater and transferred to the Orpheum Theater in the East Village, where it played for more than 2,000 performances.

Based on Roger Corman's 1960 camp classic about a man-eating plant, "Little Shop" converted back into a movie in 1986, and starred Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and Ellen Greene, who reprised her role as Audrey the flower-shop girl.

The stage revival is skedded for January 2003 under the auspices of the Frankel-Routh-Viertel-Baruch Group. It would mark the first Broadway production for "Little Shop of Horrors." A casting notice for the show indicated a pre-Gotham run in October.