The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 independent musical comedy horror film produced by Lou Adler and Michael White, directed by Jim Sharman, and distributed by 20th Century Fox.
The screenplay was written by Sharman and Richard O’Brien, who also played the supporting role of Riff Raff. The movie is based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, with music, book, and lyrics by O’Brien.
The cast for Rocky has Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter, Susan Sarandon as Janet Weiss, Barry Bostwick as Brad Majors, Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff, Patricia Quinn as Magenta, Little Nell as Columbia, Jonathan Adams as Dr. Everett V. Scott, Peter Hinwood as Rocky, Michael Lee Aday as Eddie, and Charles Grey as the criminologist.
The story centers around a newly engaged couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle, where they search for help. The castle is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes holding a party. Then they meet the head of the house, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a mad scientist and transvestite from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania, who creates a living muscle man named Rocky.
The initial reception of the film was fairly negative, but it soon became a hit as a midnight movie, when audiences began participating in the film at the Waverly Theater in New York City in 1976. Audiences continued to return to the cinema frequently and talked back to the screen, even began dressing as the characters, which spawned several performances groups across the U.S. and at the same time, fans in costume began to perform alongside the film, that’s where the term “Shadow-casting” came from, where they would mime the actions on screen and lip-sync their characters lines.
Speaking of “Shadow-casting”, I myself went to my first Rocky shadow cast last weekend, at Irving theater, it was performed by the Transylvanian Lip Treatment group (TLT), they’ve carried on the shadowcasting tradition for over ten years and they are one of the most active casts in the entire Midwest.
My experience watching their show was very amusing, I enjoyed how much they interacted with the audience, it really made me feel like I was part of the show. They put on shows very consistently, not only Rocky Horror, they’re also planning a day to do Repo – The genetic opera. The next dates for Rocky are October 25 and November 15.
