Instead of the audience sitting while they waited for the film to start, they were running and dancing around. Instead of getting quiet when the lights dimmed, they cheered and chanted. Instead of putting objects away for the movie, they were thrown. Instead of quietly watching the stage performance, the audience interacted.
Raleigh’s Rialto Theatre presents “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” every other Friday at midnight, a tradition 25 years in the making. However, Halloween is a special time of the year at the Rialto as this particular film showing will have an accompanying costume contest.
Originally a live musical performance written by Richard O’Brien, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” had its first showing in London in 1973. It became a great success in England, so Broadway performed the musical but without immediate success. In that same year in the United States, 20th Century Fox released the film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” Sept. 29, 1975.
This musical, “Rocky Horror,” has now hit its 40th anniversary. The film tells the story of a newly engaged couple, a mad transvestite scientist, a Frankenstein monster and extraterrestrials who are all under the same roof for a night due to a storm. Bryan Wendeln, who played the Criminologist in the Rialto’s performance, said the musical is a homage to old horror and sci-fi movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s. When the couple is in Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s house, they witness the release of his new creation, Rocky Horror, a Frankenstein monster in the form of an artificially made, physically perfect man.
In 1976, the film aired its first midnight showing in New York where it included, for the first time, audience participation, where members talked back and yelled things at the screen.
“There are these giant holes in the movie where they don’t say anything,” Wendeln said. “It’s like they’re prompting people to fill in extra dialogue.”
Beyond the audience’s dialogue, there are more aspects to its participation during the film. The audience can dance to the “Time Warp,” participate in an underwear run and throw props including rice, toilet paper and playing cards during certain scenes.
“Most nights the audience is all into the movie, all into the callback lines, all into everything,” said Kassandra Enloe, who plays Dr. Frank-N-Furt. “And I personally think it’s very enjoyable for the cast when the audience is enjoying what we’re doing on stage.”
The Rialto Theatre’s midnight showing of “Rocky Horror” includes more than the film, callback lines and thrown props. There are also actors who perform live in front of the screen while the movie plays.
“It is a chaos and sensory overload because what you have is a movie on a screen, people acting out the movie in front of the screen, people in the audience interacting with the movie on the screen and the people who are interacting with each other,” McLean said.
“Rocky Horror” is considered a quintessential cult classic with weekly midnight showings all over the nation, global live performances and a second — and very successful — Broadway run. Ellie Nerdy, one of the Dr. Frank-N-Furt actors, said “Rocky Horror” is definitely known as a cult classic because of its 40-year duration and large fanbase.
“It’s definitely a cult,” Nerdy said. “You can come [to “Rocky Horror”] once, and if it’s not for you, then it’s just not for you. But if you come [to “Rocky Horror”] once and you love it, you get sucked in. You want to come every week. It starts becoming something you talk about constantly.”
“Rocky Horror” also aggregated such a large fan base during the 1970s to 1990s because of it is overtly sexual delivery and its topics of being a homosexual, transgender or transvestite individual.
“I’m transgender myself, so you know it’s cool to see stuff like that,” said Larsen Saffron, a student at Pitt Community College and a Rialto attendee. “Even if it’s transvestism, which is different. It’s still cool to see that on a screen. I want to dress like him and everything.”
Not only do the audience members feel comfortable inspired by “Rocky Horror,” but the actors do as well.
“Being in the show really made me confident in myself,” Nerdy said. “No one makes fun of you for how you look or anything. So I just got up [on stage], and everyone started seeing how beautiful I was. Eventually I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do anything.’”
The Halloween “Rocky Horror Show” is Friday at 11:30 p.m. There will be a costume contest with a prize. McLean and Nerdy said they are expecting a full house.
“Halloween show is going to be screen accurate,” Nerdy said. “It’s always fun and always completely packed. I feel like we always end up breaking our record from the year before to the point that last year we had to turn away people. It’s like our super bowl — I will say that.”
Nerdy said “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is something everyone should see. Nerdy said that everyone at the Rialto is very welcoming and that if “you don’t fit in anywhere else, you’ll fit in here.”
“I think people should come at least once,” Saffron said. “You got to try everything once, even if it’s not your thing, which honestly I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. If you’re the kind of person who people would tell to come to this, then I’d be surprised if it weren’t your thing.”
To view “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” gallery click here.
Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by Ellie Berson, turns Janet, played by Sabrina Lazaro, and Dr. Scott, played by Lizabeth Parker, into stone during their performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Rialto Theatre on Friday, Oct 16, 2015.
