“Little Shop of Horrors” is also, of course, great fun, and never more so than at New Rep, where simple, thoughtful production values rule. Peter Colao’s set shows the alley in back of the run-down flower-shop block, with tires scattered here and there, “Flats Fixed” spray-painted on one faded brick wall, a shopping cart, a trash can, excess garbage lying about, and a chalk outline on the pavement that a wino will eventually appropriate for his night’s rest. The two center sections rotate to display the interior of Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, a dull-looking affair with a counter, a cash register, a calendar, a bulletin board, a couple of hanging plants, and no customers. (It could be the prices: When someone does come in, $100 gets him just eight wilted-looking American Beauty roses from the fridge.)

Business is so bad, Mushnik is planning to lay off his two employees, Seymour and Audrey, and close up shop — until Seymour produces the fatal flytrap that he found in the aftermath of a total eclipse of the sun. He’s named it Audrey II, and, in the first of its four New Rep incarnations, it’s puppet-size and cute as a button as it salivates at the sight of Seymour’s blood. Actually, all four Audrey IIs are adorable, even the last one, with its leafy ears and pouty grin; voiced by Timothy John Smith and manipulated by Timothy P. Hoover, it’s as big as a warthog but moves like a polo pony.