Just came back from Boston, where I went up to see Gwen participate in “Gender Bender” night in Harvard Square’s midnight showing of “Rocky Horror.” Usually Gwen works lights for the life show that unfolds in front of the movie screen (as is SOP). However, “Gender Bender” night entails folks of opposite genders playing the various roles, and Gwen was tapped to do “Eddie.” Naturally, when thinking of casting a role made famous by Meatloaf, you’d want to get slim, diminuitive Gwen. Especially when you’ve got a guy playing Columbia who’s six feet tall and built like a linebacker. Not only was gender casting reversed but, of necessity, choreography was reversed as well, so the audience was treated to the sight of Columbia picking up Eddie and swinging “him” around.
I was interested to see how the audience participation has been updated. Fans are always coming up with new things. For instance, now when the narrator first shows us the picture of Doctor Scott in his wheelchair, fans shout–a la South Park–“Timmy!” Or during the noted “Brad! Janet! Rocky! Doctor Scott!” sequence, an audience member might call out “Pop! Six! Squish! Uh uh! Cicero! Lipshitz!” from the film “Chicago.”
Also was surprised by the number of nubile young woman anxious to bare their breasts as part of the preshow. I thought I was watching “Co-Eds Go Wild!”
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I just love the idea of a gender bending Rocky Horror.
I mean, it’s not as if it isn’t a bit bent to begin with.
“Also was surprised by the number of nubile young woman anxious to bare their breasts as part of the preshow. I thought I was watching “Co-Eds Go Wild!””
Obviously, I’m going to the wrong university. Or the wrong events.
Yep, that’s Rocky for you!
I play Eddie at a cast here in Binghamton NY and I’ve played Columbia on two such occasions. It’s a blast.
Eddie is a great role, since you only have one scene which is short and intensely cool. I also lie under a tablecloth for the dinner scene and play the windshield wipers for the car scene.
I saw the show at Harvard Square once a few years ago. Good show. It’s awesome that they do it every weekend- we can’t even get the theatre owner to do it bi-monthly. he wants to do just Halloween.
The flashing co-eds can happen at Rocky. Depends on the girls. We had a few who went pretty nuts at a thong contest- ended up wearing only thongs. Pretty crazy.
I’m trying to think of my favourite call line… either “And that’s go pick ym nose and then fling it!” from Dammit Janet or “Does that mean it doesn’t matter?” refering to the anti-matter beam.
Jordan D. White
wax-work.com
I was in the first generation of Rocky Horror virgins, as the State Theater in New Brunswick played the movie at midnight around the same time as it was becoming a cult classic in NYC, so I was kind of in on the ground floor of the call-and-responses. And I’m totally baffled by the more recent ones. Not only don’t I seem to have the same reference frames as these folks, but from what I recall from the few times I’ve seen it in a theater since the late ’70s, many responses have gotten decidedly nastier. Janet Weiss used to just elicit the relatively tame response, “Slûŧ!” Now she’s a bìŧçh or worse. The nastiest thing we shouted in the old days was to note that Mycroft– I mean, Charles Gray “had no fûçkìņg neck!” So now when I watch RHPS it’s usually on TV or DVD, not in a theater. And for me it’s not erally RHPS unless “Superheroes” is in the film in its entirety. 🙂
You know, I narrated a live performance of Rocky Horror and despite being only 29 and clearly with-neck, the ‘where’s your f’in neck’ comments were relentless.
But I didn’t mind, it just gave me more excuse to banter with the audience, which was essentially my job anyway.
Of course this was the part I got ‘because they knew I was foul-mouthed enough to handle this crowd.’
It’s about time people recognized my talents.
Reminds me of college – we wanted to do the stage version (pre Broadway revival by about 10 years) but couldn’t get the license! It was either because the movie was playing somewhere in town (San Diego) or it was just too cost prohibitive…dashed my dreams of playing Eddie!
Glad to see the movie still going strong. I first saw the film in the late 1970s at a pørņø theater in Dayton, Ohio (they opened the place up to kids at Midnight every Friday and Saturday for the showings of the movie . . . pretty weird in reflection), and last saw it about seven years ago in a theater in Columbus, Ohio.
That was a pretty sad experience. The audience has gotten nastier over the years and much less creative in their responses (at least at that particular showing). Most shout-outs were along the lines of “shut up, you $#*@&$(#$!” for every character, no matter who they were. I stopped going after that. Maybe the time has come for renewed creative interest? I hope so.
“Maybe the time has come for renewed creative interest? I hope so.”
Clearly a high-profile comics revival is called for.
Peter A. David, Destiny is calling YOU!
I first saw Rocky Horror at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1976 in Kansas City. At that time, it was too new for a lot of audience comments.
They *did* have to schedule a second showing though once the folks who had seen the first show told their friends…
lso was surprised by the number of nubile young woman anxious to bare their breasts as part of the preshow. I thought I was watching “Co-Eds Go Wild!”
Would it be inappropriate to insert a “Dangerous Curves” pun here?
“Reminds me of college – we wanted to do the stage version (pre Broadway revival by about 10 years) but couldn’t get the license! It was either because the movie was playing somewhere in town (San Diego) or it was just too cost prohibitive…dashed my dreams of playing Eddie!”
Actually, the amateur stage rights to ‘Rocky’ were tied up in legal stuff until the past couple years. It doesn’t have anything to do with the movie showing. In fact, when we did the show live last Halloween, a movie house literally down the street was showing the movie.
Bryn Mawr does Rocky once a semester. We can’t really be called gender-bending, since the all-female cast is a consequence of a women’s college, but it does lead to some interesting sights (Rocky wearing a gold bikini and a six-foot tall bleach blonde African-American female Frank, anyone?). As for call-backs, we stick to tradtional ones, like “Who stole your fûçkìņg neck?”, “Slûŧ!”, and “That’s two Haverboys and Marilyn Manson” (re: a 98-pound weakling). Our virgin sacrifices never get too out of hand, the highlights being the rubber-band flail whipping and the sexiest way to eat a blow-pop. Not too wild, but not tame either, being Rocky.
The Transylvanian Gopher to the Techie Goddess
Btw, people might be amused by this blast from 1986; the Phoenix saga retold as Rocky Horror, complete with songs. Ladies and gentlemen, the Rocky Horror Mutant Show!
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/swil/FILKS/Old_format/mutant_horror.txt
Rocky Horror has become an interesting mix of the creative and the anti-creative, as the “correct” lines get cemented into place at various theaters (it’s still fun to be the guy who goes from one theater to another theater and seems horribly creative for using lines they’ve not heard at the new place, I reckon.)
I started going to Rocky for the same reason most people start going to Rocky, it seems: chasing after a member of the appropriate sex. Spent years going, ended up in the cast, generally as Dr. Scott. Played Columbia once, to good response, and better yet to lack of recognition; having shaved off my beard that day, I was unrecognized even by the female friend who had spent an evening trying to have her way with me earlier that week.
Been a few years since I went, though.
I can’t think of Rocky Horror the same after Jaspar Fforde’s Eyre Affair, where in their alternate reality, The Rocky Horror Experience is done to RIchard III.
“Death means nothing, never will again!”
The Rocky Horror Mutant Show? Gentlemen…I think we’ve found the angle for ‘X-Men 3’! Get Schumacher on the phone, NOW!
I can’t think of Rocky Horror the same after Jaspar Fforde’s Eyre Affair, where in their alternate reality, The Rocky Horror Experience is done to RIchard III.
“When is the winter of our discontent?”
BTW, the sequel, Lost in a Good Book is out now in the US.
David
I actually got my copy last year from amazon.uk.
>>And for me it’s not erally RHPS unless “Superheroes” is in the film in its entirety.<<
Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed how much ‘Superheroes’ sounds like….ironically, or appropriately enough, depending upon your perspective….the melancholy closing theme to ‘The Incredible Hulk’ T.V. series??
Really!!….play them both some time!!
J.D.