Rocky Horror Picture Show

Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Late Night Double Feature

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, created in 1975, is a mixture of science fiction, a musical, and comedy elements. The movie is a cult film worldwide, and is often recognized for being the first film to ever feature a transsexual main character, Dr. Frank-N-Furter played by Tim Curry. All of the aforementioned contributes to the large following that the movie has gained over the past 40 years, but the main reason that the show has become so popular can be attributed to the late night, live performances given by theatres around the globe.

In order to understand the rest of this essay, you must understand the Rocky Horror Picture Show, also known as Rocky Horror and RHPS. The plot is almost nonexistent, but the storyline is as follows: Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) become engaged and on their way to visit their former Professor, Dr. Scott (Jonathan Adams), get caught with a flat, then end up at Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s Castle where musical insanity ensues. The science fiction of the film is delivered when Frank-N-Furter reveals his creation, Rocky (Peter Hinwood), as well as his origin, which is outer space. By the end of the movie, the castle is destroyed and the main characters are singing the Time Warp once again.

The tradition of watching a live Rocky Horror performance at a midnight showing began in New York City at the Waverly Theatre. On April 1st, 1976, an advertising executive for FOX, Tim Deegan, came up with the idea to play the show at the independent theatre and have a live cast act out the film as it played on the big screen (Ambler). The young executive’s plan was a success and drew crowds that became larger with every Friday, midnight showing of RHPS. The greatest achievement of that first show in April wasn’t Deegan’s success though, that honor belongs solely to Dori Hartley, the first Frank.

Dori Hartley is an idol in the RHPS community because she is the first person to ever perform as Frank-N-Furter during a showing of RHPS. Not only was she completely comfortable with playing a transsexual for all to see during the 70’s and 80’s when sexual orientation was kept hush, hush, but she also created part of the “call back” tradition of Rocky Horror by interacting with the crowd. The experience that Hartley gained from her live performances at the Waverly Theatre allowed her to become/release her “free spirit”, work in more serious Broadway plays, and she was able to work with Tim Curry in a music video (Ambler). Hartley set the bar for all other Frank performers to overcome and showed that you can really come from nothing and become something.

The greatest tradition associated with live RHPS performances isn’t the throwing of props, or the lip-syncing, or even dancing along to the Time Warp. The greatest tradition is the counterpoint dialogue. In an early summer performance of RHPS an audience member, Louis Farese, felt “compelled to speak to the screen” and yelled, “Buy and umbrella, you cheap bitch!” –to Janet as she walked in the rain while shielding herself form the precipitation with a newspaper (Ambler). From that day on others participated in creating a dialogue to go along with the movie that made fun at the poorly produced film. After the callbacks were created it wasn’t long before people came to the showings dressed in full costume, with props, and prepared to join in on the virgin inductions.

A “virgin” is someone who has never seen RHPS live in a theatre. If you happen to be a virgin and are seeing the show for the first time in a theatre then you must go through initiation, which can vary from theatre to theatre. For example a theatre in Norfolk, Virginia, the Naro, plays a game prior to show to determine who is and isn’t and virgin, and if you are found to be a virgin you must go up on stage, state your name, bend over, grab your ankles, and get paddled. The process has no real place of origin, but is simply meant to be sexual and embarrassing, as well as to prepare you for the insanity of the live show that you are about to be a part of.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a wonderful tradition and experience to be a part of, even if it is only a one-time deal. The cult following is proof of how enjoyable the live shows are, as well as the history that comes with it.

Works Cited

Ambler, Christopher. "TRHPS Official Fan Site: Participation: A Virgin's Guide." TRHPS Official Fan Site: Participation: A Virgin's Guide. RHPS Fanpage, n.d. Web. 25 July 2015.

This research essay is by far one of the most interesting to me, because of my love of the topic, which is why most of the information didn't need to be cited, because I already had a vast knowledge of the topic. It was a bit hard to narrow down the topic and find an absolute focus, but I did my best to do so, and not go too far off topic.