While many people will be sitting around with family opening presents, eating lots of food and relaxing on Christmas Day, Liz Pearce will be on stage under a bright spotlight in front of hundreds of people.

Pearce, the female lead of Audrey in the Broadway national tour of “Little Shop of Horrors,” says this year’s holiday will be quite different from those in past.

“This is the first time that I’m actually performing on Christmas Day and on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, so I won’t get to spend it with my family, but my husband will be with me,” she says. “So it will be a different kind of Christmas.”

Pearce, who in August married Pierre Diennet, an actor she met on a national tour three years ago, has been with “Little Shop of Horrors” since Aug. 1. At first an understudy to the actress who played Audrey, Pearce moved her way up to take on the role when the original actress left the show.

“Audrey is sort of the quintessential blonde. She’s funny and sweet, she has a heart of gold, but she happens to be living in a terrible place and among sort of terrible circumstances,” Pearce says. “People would think she is kind of ditzy, but she’s just very sweet.”

When auditioning for the role of Audrey, Pearce had to perform in front of the director, choreographer, casting director, music director and accompaniment, and the production stage manager. She says auditions still tend to spark her nerves, but in many cases, her nervousness is a good thing.

“It is a nerve-wracking experience because you never know what they want, you never know what they’re looking for, so you kind of just have to go in and do what you do and hope that that fits what they’re looking for,” she says. “There’s always a little bit of butterflies, but that helps sometimes with your adrenaline and energy.”

The touring company of “Little Shop of Horrors” performs eight times a week, Tuesday through Sunday, with two shows on Saturday and two on Sunday. To keep up with the fast-paced lifestyle, Pearce must keep herself healthy. This, however, is something she finds rather difficult to keep up with.

“My biggest challenge throughout the week I think would just be staying in shape for the show, because we’re changing city each week and often changing climate. With flying so much, it can be real easy to get sick or get tired, and so just taking my vitamins and drinking water, trying not to get too dry when it’s cold and all that kind of stuff.”

Although “Little Shop of Horrors” first premiered in 1982 and quickly moved off-Broadway to Orpheum Theater, the show opened on Broadway in 2003. The main difference between Broadway and off-Broadway, besides the fact that off-Broadway is not actually in the famed Broadway district, is the house size, Pearce says. The off-Broadway houses are smaller and more intimate.

“I think with off-Broadway, playwrights and writers are able to maybe take a few more risks than they’d be able to on Broadway,” she says. “Broadway definitely is a little more mainstream, so when ‘Little Shop’ came out originally off Broadway, I think it was a little dark, and a little unusual. Our tastes now have changed, and we’ve gotten a little riskier so when the revival came around this time, Broadway was the perfect place for it.”

The public tends to assume Broadway shows will be better than those that are off Broadway. This assumption may lead to higher expectations for those involved in a performance on Broadway.

“I think the general public thinks that Broadway is the top and it is. I mean it’s the best theater out there,” Pearce says. “I think people’s expectations are high. Although I have to say the off-Broadway scene, especially in the past few years, has been so up-and-coming that I’d say the expectations are just as high off-Broadway.”

Pleasing the audience is important to Pearce and the crowd’s reactions can easily affect her performance, she says. There is always a moment in a show when she can tell whether the crowd is in or out.

“We love to hear the audience reacting, and obviously clapping and laughing and having a good time,” she says. “That really kind of charges us with energy, when we can tell that they are having a good time, that they are invested in the story and in our characters.”