Music: Nathan Wang Book & Lyrics: Noelle Donfeld
What is stronger, selfish or selfless love? A whimsical tale of about a generous young shopkeeper with a heart of gold.
Adam’s mother, Grindelfaba, a totally self-absorbed witch, left him at the age of ten, ordering their enchanted antique shop to keep him happy and at home until she finds her runaway husband. Shop has kept him inside by letting him give his customers anything they wish for whatever they can afford to pay. But now, almost twenty, he longs for more than a shop’s company.
When a poor man and his devoted daughter, Beth, come to buy a gold ring for her mother, he buys instead an enchanted mirror whose power makes him vain and cold. Beth asks to work at the shop so that she can buy the gold ring for her mother, and Adam happily agrees. As their love grows, so does “Shop’s” angst. When Beth finds a gold ring, Adam innocently gives her, not knowing it would make her mother comatose and green. Shop prevents Adam from leaving with Beth and ultimately hurls a box at him, knocking him out. As Adam remains motionless on the floor, his mother returns, somewhat concerned. Adam awakens and chastises his mother for abandoning him, and she agrees to reverse the curse on the ring. Beth’s mother awakens, but when Grindelfaba tries to exert control on the young couple, Adam surprisingly stops her. She reveals that he inherited the family’s magical powers on his twentieth birthday. Adam asks Beth to marry him, but she insists he not use his new “gift”. Thwarted, Grindelfaba wistfully departs, leaving them to run the antique shop, “who” is happy to be just a simple shop.