The stage is set. Makeup by the pound sits on standby. Red tubes of lipstick have been bought and opened, ready to mark the foreheads of the newbies. It’s Rocky Horror Picture Show season at Elizabethtown College and the message is being spread across community and campus; get ready for the creatures of the night to descend on the school. While some are certainly shivering with anticipation, first-year students and members of the greater Elizabethtown community might be wondering what exactly Rocky Horror Picture Show is.
To those who don’t know, the cast and crew of the Etown Intellectual Film Club are carrying on a 40 year tradition that began in a small theater in Los Angeles. Rocky Horror Picture Show rose to popular culture cult status in 1974 with the original stage production, directed and written by Richard O’Brien and starring Tim Curry as the antagonizing protagonist Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Theaters across the United States now put on shadow-casts, where the hit film plays in the background as actors act it out on stage.
The plot is held together by dreams and eyeshadow. A young couple, recently engaged, seek refuge from a storm in a creepy old mansion filled with the strangest people they have ever met. Among them are a voyeuristic hunchback, a vaudeville dancer, a man who was made in a lab, a motorcycle-riding bad boy and an old German scientist with fantastic legs. The young couple must escape with their dignity and their lives. But first, they have to work their way through a couple of dance numbers, awkward encounters with heavily-glittered people and lots and lots of skimpy outfits.
The show itself has always been interactive. Previous shadowcasts have let audience members scream at the actors and throw bread, rice and other objects on stage (Note: out of respect for Gibble auditorium, Etown’s production omits this part of the tradition). First-timers to the show are marked with a lipstick “V” on their forehead and put through the ringer for some of the scenes: doing the “Time Warp” on stage and eating marshmallows off of cast members are a few old rituals.
The Etown Intellectual Film Club has been hosting a shadow-cast of the film for almost 15 years. For many, Rocky Horror Picture Show represents a chance to go out and forget one’s troubles. Senior psychology major and Intellectual Film Club president Sam Morykan has been in the show since her first year at Etown. She knows that the process of putting on the show is hardly easy, but worth it in the end.
“The crowd we draw is so interesting. It’s the most mixed group of people I’ve ever seen,” Morykan said.
This year, the part of Frank-N-Furter will be played by senior Japanese and business major Frances Carpenter. Carpenter was in the production as Rocky, the beefy blonde homemade man, in their first year and is ready for whatever this popular role can throw at them.
“I was born to play this part,” Carpenter said with a laugh.
For Carpenter, the Etown production is an important part of their Etown experience.
“I need a pastime and Rocky Horror is the best one I’ve found. You end up getting close with a lot of people,” Carpenter said.
Rocky Horror Picture show is, at its core, a social experience. Morykan and Intellectual Film Club vice president Jennifer Gorel make a point to reach out into the Etown community beyond the campus to draw people in. For the past three years, the Intellectual Film Club has built connections with local businesses like Frugal Finds and ETC Etown, a video game shop. The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I think the best thing about the show is that a lot of people get to see something that they’ve never seen before and they get to participate in something wild and significant. The community members that do come have a really good time,” Morykan said.
Overall, the Rocky Horror Picture Show on campus inspires people to get out of their comfort zones and experience something different. Each person gets something significant out of the show in the end and it is what you make it.
“It brings together people that would have never gotten together. It sort of forces people to put themselves in a different situation than they’re used to and that can be really fun and important for some folks,” Gorel said.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show will be on for one night only. Etown students and community are invited to Gibble Auditorium at 11:59 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16 for a one-of-a-kind night. To Etown’s first-years that go, know that you are participating in a ritual that is special to all types of people. It is a chance to try something different and be whoever you want to be.
So dress up, go out, wear a little lipstick and have fun. It can be scary to go out and do something entirely new, especially something so outrageous. Just know that the experience is what you make it. So, don’t dream it; be it.
