My heart leaped last summer when Broadway producers began a revival of “Little Shop of Horrors” — that wacky off-Broadway gem from 1982 that became, for my money, one of the best contemporary movie musicals.

It meant we’d soon be getting the touring version at ASU’s Gammage Auditorium.

Well, that tour stop is still a year off, but Mesa Community College and Phoenix Theatre have appeased my impatience with a mixed professional/student production of “Little Shop” on PT’s main stage, a charity for Maricopa Community Colleges’ literacy programs.

It’s a charmingly cockeyed comic romp that features some surprising vocal performances, some inspired acting and a whole bunch of spunk from a cast of current and former MCC students. The bar keeps getting raised on my favorite summer show, and so far, this is it.

Phoenix Theatre actor-in-residence Robbie Harper is at the helm, directing the campy musical story of what happens when a mild-mannered florist, Seymour, makes a Faustian bargain with a jive-talking, man-eating alien plant he names Audrey II.

Harper lavishes attention on what ultimately becomes the focus of the show — not the relationship between Seymour and his ditzy crush, Audrey, but rather the Greek chorus of three sassy street urchins who sing and dance on poppy doo-wop numbers throughout the show.

His urchins are Jennifer Jackson (Ronnette), Anika Tisdale (Crystal) and Leia Scott (Chiffon), who suggest they’re more than Skid Row urchins — they’re aliens just like that similarly sassy plant. (And you can’t get more sass and two-snaps attitude than what Scott Pierce delivers as the voice of Audrey II behind the scenes.)

The urchins don’t steal the spotlight without a fight from Billy Irwin, perfect as the nebbish Seymour, and Misha Faucher, whose Audrey ditches an iffy Ellen Greene-mocking accent (“the gutter” becomes “the guttuh”) only to flex her gorgeous pipes on belters like “Somewhere That’s Green” and “Suddenly Seymour.”

The only missteps in the show are the characters of Orin Scrivello (played by Phillip Fazio) and old man Mushnik (Jere Van Patten). Scrivello, a sadistic dentist and Audrey II’s first human victim, is played too silly. And neither director Harper nor Van Patten quite knows what to do with their Jewish florist who becomes Audrey II’s second snack. Here, he’s just a big guy with a dumb moustache.

Minor quibbles for a show that’s the most fun any Valley stage is serving up this summer.