For two weekends, Windham High School students will say it with flowers – and with a growing specimen of a more sinister variety – as they delight area residents with their dark musical comedy, “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Set among the vagrants and the winos in early 1960’s New York, Mushnik’s Skid Row Flower Shop exists in a spot that even Mr. Mushnik acknowledges is not the best place to sell flowers.

He employs two sales clerks to help him sell his living flowers at his dying business: Seymour, whose nerdiness hides a burning infatuation for a certain young woman, and Audrey, the object of a sadistic dentist’s abuse and the object of Seymour’s secret affection.

In a noble attempt to attract customers to the store, Seymour fetches his unusual plant from the cellar and displays it in the shop window. Immediately, passersby are drawn in by this extraordinary specimen, which Seymour calls Audrey II. Because of the business Audrey II attracts, the store’s fortunes quickly improve and Seymour becomes famous.

But fame and fortune do not come without a price. And for Seymour, that price is blood. As he struggles to satisfy the now-massive plant’s insatiable appetite, Seymour becomes evermore entwined in its deadly control. Soon, just blood will not do and he must continue to supply the beast, as hope grows dim and love blooms deadly.

Veteran Jon Miele is directing this hit show, which he said was selected in deference to its popularity among many of the actors, especially the seniors.

“They’ve been with me for four years and, for several of them, this was their favorite show,” Miele said. “I thought I’d get out of my comfort zone a little bit – this isn’t really my type of show, but this is good for me, too, to do this.”

As the high school’s director for the past three years, Miele’s “type of show” is generally a musical that contains big production numbers like last year’s hit, “Hello Dolly” and his 2004 production, “42nd Street.”

“Little Shop” is, instead, a more intimate, less glitzy musical that gets its energy and pizzazz from the doo wop and soul music reminiscent of the early ’60s.

Although the cast could be smaller, Miele “doesn’t turn people away,” according to senior Sam Clarke, who plays Seymour.

And Miele says that, even though working around different sports and activities schedules can be difficult, he likes “to have as many people in the show as possible.”

“I want athletes; I want everybody,” he said.

Miele raves about his cast: “The kids are incredible – they make the show. I love working with the kids.”

He also raves about his parent volunteers, saying he could not have mounted this production without Denise Williams, the show’s producer; Scott Gordon, the tech director and set builder; and costumer Weslie Evans.

The plant, Audrey II, is a special challenge of the show for both Miele and its operator. Created for the original musical by the Jim Henson Workshop, during the play, this funky flower goes through four stages of growth, ending up as the savage behemoth of the plant world.

Miele is grateful to the Windham Theater Boosters, who chipped in $500 toward the $1,500 rental fee for Audrey II. He said controlling the puppet is “really, really hard,” adding that “the insides are kind of ratty. And they smell terrible.”

Miele and music director, Beth Barefoot-Jones, began rehearsing the play in September. Based on director Roger Corman’s 1960 cult classic film, the current musical version was born when Howard Ashman and Alan Mencken, who wrote music and lyrics for Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast,” turned it into an off-Broadway hit in 1982.

The 1986 movie that followed, directed by Frank Oz, starred such greats as Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and Bill Murray. The musical recently completed a successful first run on Broadway.

“Little Shop of Horrors” opened Thursday night, with five more performances: Friday and Saturday evenings, November 11, 12, 18, 19, at 7:30 and Saturday, November 19, at 2 p.m. Call 892-1810, ext. 277 for more information.