The best ticket in town

Right here in Cape Girardeau the River Campus is staging production after production of a quality quite simply beyond belief for their overall excellence. Case in point: the just-completed run of the musical "Little Shop of Horrors."

We are talking here of a rather slight play that received world-class treatment from the University Players. They absolutely nailed it. On a set that would do Broadway proud they sang like pros. They danced the light fantastically. A trio of vixens ("Crystal," "Chiffon," "Ronette") commented, Greek choruslike, on what was happening or ominously about to. Seymour, the properly nerdish lead, reminded me for the world of the silent-screen star Harold Lloyd, while I would swear Monty Python's John Cleese made a cameo appearance in drag. Even the costumes were witty. The mad dentist's laughing-gas helmet was just wizard. Somehow he sang out of the damned thing.

And the audience was wild with enthusiasm, clapping and shouting and laughing, from curtain-rise through the richly deserved standing ovation. It was wonderful.

The best ticket in this town is not for professional touring productions, truly fine though many of them are. No, hands down the best ticket is for the university's theatrical productions. They can only be described as unbelievably energetic and marvelous.

LESTER GOODIN, Cape Girardeau