Turns out Theatre Charlotte’s crazed dentist in ‘Little Shop’ is a real dentist

In Theatre Charlotte’s recent three-weekend run of “Little Shop of Horrors,” the role of the sadistic dentist was played by a real-life pediatric dentist — Dr. Nehemiah Lawson.

The classic musical focuses on a mysterious — and hungry — plant that winds up in a flower shop down on Skid Row. Dr. Orin Scrivello DDS is the leather-clad abusive boyfriend of Audrey, a sweet-natured clerk at the store who is pined after by her co-worker, Seymour.

“I was very familiar with the musical and the film, and I could not think of any other musical where a dentist was one of the featured characters, so I really wanted to play the role,” the 32-year-old Lawson recently told The Charlotte Observer. “But the character is unhinged.

“So I was like, I hope I’ve practiced (dentistry) enough to where my reputation precedes me in a good way.”

One of his favorite scenes involves a bit that he and the show’s director wrote for comic relief. “(Orin) is doing all of these things that only a crazy dentist would do, like straddling the patient, pulling teeth out of the patient’s mouth and sniffing the teeth. He’s doing all kinds of weird stuff,” Lawson said.

The character goes on to maniacally gargle with water, awkwardly fiddle with his dental instruments and attempt to use tools like an axe in the patient’s mouth.

“We made it up to play into every stereotype,” Lawson said. “The scene is already funny, but we added more to it.”

‘Here he is folks, the leader of the plaque’

The show wasn’t the dentist’s first role moonlighting in local theater.

Audiences may remember him as The Minstrel in “Something Rotten” and starring in the role of Leading Player in “Pippin,” both for Theatre Charlotte. That latter part “was one of my dream roles, and it was just so much fun,” he said.

To find time for a full-time job and evening performances, Lawson turns to coffee. “And I drink coffee through a straw,” he said, before adding, “That’s such a dentist answer.”

He also has performed with QC Concerts and Matthews Playhouse where he recently portrayed a member of the 1950s vocal pop/R&B group The Drifters in “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”

And last year, he played Happiness in “Thoughts of a Colored Man” at Three Bone Theatre, where he also serves on the board of directors. The story centers on seven Black men, each with their own storyline and emotion.

“That was fun, because my life actually mirrored that character a lot, in my upbringing and everything else,” he said. “It was very natural.”

‘Son, be a dentist / You’ll be a success’

Lawson was born in 1993 in Birkenfeld, Germany, where his father was stationed with the U.S. Army. A year later, the family moved back to the U.S., living in New York, New Jersey and Texas, before landing in Columbus, Georgia, where he attended high school.

Lawson was a high-energy, well-rounded student. “If you think of ‘High School Musical’ and Troy Bolton, (Zac Efron’s character) that was me. I did everything,” he said. Lawson served on student council, played attacker on the lacrosse team and ran the 400-meter relay.

Then came his stage commitments.

“The one-acts, the musicals, show choir, quartet, and I played trumpet in the band the first two years. So everything performing arts, you name it, I did it,” he said. Lawson cited his choir director, Alicia Vinson, and theater director Paul Hampton for providing him with a lifelong passion for the performing arts.

At the same time, his parents strongly encouraged his academics.

“I was the first generation in my family to go to college, and definitely the first in my family to get a doctorate and be a professional at that level,” Lawson said. “My parents knew how important education was, so they instilled that very early on, ensuring that I was doing my homework, doing well in my classes, and always on top of it.”

After high school, he pursued an undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia, where he studied theater and biology, with an emphasis on neuroscience.

He had shadowed a few doctors along with his childhood dentist, Dr. Jeffrey King, in high school, as he considered the medical field. Ultimately, he landed on dentistry. “All the doctors told me to pursue dentistry,” he said. “They said, ‘They’re less stressed.’ ”

While in Athens, Georgia, he sang with the UGA Accidentials, an all-male a cappella group, and performed in shows ranging from “Children of Eden” and “Once on This Island,” a one-act play written by Lynn Ahrens, to “A Very Potter Musical,” in which he played Ron Weasley.

‘I thrill when I drill a bicuspid’

After graduation, he went to dental school at UNC Chapel Hill, where he also brushed up on his stage skills, taking classes in theater, dance and vocal technique during short summer breaks.

When he got to Charlotte in 2021, “Dr. Nemo,” as his patients at Carolina Kids Dentistry call him, sought out involvement in local theater. He recalls attending “The Lehman Trilogy” at Three Bone.

“I thought, ‘Whoa, this is really good.’ There’s a niche here for stories that center around Black and indigenous people, but in general, adult contemporary theater,” he said. “They tell stories that are hard-hitting and need to be told, stories that make you think, make you feel, and it’s a catalyst for having those tough conversations.”

‘You’ll find a way / To make your natural tendencies pay’

Charlotte’s stages aren’t Lawson’s only brushes with fame.

In 2023, his younger sister, Charity, was cast as the single gal looking for love on the 20th season of “The Bachelorette.” In the long-running ABC reality show, dozens of single men vie for the affection of one bachelorette, not without over-the-top drama.

For one episode, Lawson shows up unexpectedly, portraying a bartender, in order to secretly report back the true thoughts and intentions of the men looking for his sister’s affection.

“I showed up and basically the producers said, ‘These are the questions you’re going to ask, and you’re going to wear this disguise,’ ” he said. “It was the worst. It was this thick mustache and a Jheri curl wig and some glasses.”

As for his time in the limelight, whether on a global television phenomenon or shining on local stages, Lawson enjoys it all. But one goal remains.

“One thing I still want to do is audition for a national or open-casting call tour of a Broadway show,” he said. “It’s definitely something I want to do at least once in my life, just to say that I did it.”

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This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 5:24 AM.