It’s early afternoon on a Friday when Darren Criss and Evan Rachel Wood pick up the phone, just five days before they are set to debut as the new Seymour and Audrey in off-Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors.

Both are on their way to the Westside Theatre stage for their first top-to-bottom run-through, taking over the complicated but beloved characters based on Roger Corman’s 1960 horror comedy and deftly adapted for the stage by theater legends Howard Ashman (book and lyrics) and Alan Menken (music).

Now in the fifth year of the U.S. revival of the dark goings-on of a Skid Row flower shop, several notable names have left their mark on the show: Jonathan Groff, Jeremy Jordan, Conrad Ricamora, Corbin Bleu, Constance Wu, Maude Apatow, Tammy Blanchard and Lena Hall. But none quite like this, as an intentional leap together among friends.

As the interview begins,...