The Rocky Horror Picture Show is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. While the musical film flopped at the box office, it's gained cult status thanks to decades of fans dressing up to attend midnight showings and shout out their favorite lines.
The raunchy musical movie was based off Richard O’Brien’s 1973 London stage production and fans get especially hyped up around Halloween. On the Central Coast, the Paper Wing Theatre has put on the longest-running performance of The Rocky Horror Show.
Between Oct. 10 and Nov. 1, people cue up on Friday and Saturday nights outside the Paper Wing Theatre to attend their production. The company was founded by Koly McBride in 2001 and their venue has changes over the years.
But Rocky Horror has always been part of the program.
“For us as a theater, it’s always been what we love to do the most," said McBride. "This is kind of what we’re all building for throughout the year.”
After starting at the Fox Theater in Salinas, the location moved to Lighthouse and Hoffman Avenues in Monterey in 2007 and eventually found a home on Cannery Row in 2019. Loyal fans have followed Paper Wing's annual productions across the three venues while others have only recently discovered the intimate arts locale.
Rayne Coleman is a longtime Rocky Horror fan who discovered Paper Wing's immersive production four years ago. She’s wearing a Rocky Horror t-shirt and her forearms are adorned with fishnet gloves covered in rhinestones.
"If you like the movie, then you definitely gotta come see a show,” said Coleman, who loves that the audience is part of the production.
"There is audience participation—for those who know the show we’ll know what to do—otherwise you kind of get a little briefing before you go in," said Coleman. "It makes it more fun."
A big draw of Rocky Horror is that the show happens in the crowd as much as it does on stage. Director Jordynne England announces audience participation cues to those who’ve never experienced a show before—these newcomers are called "virgins."
"I’m gonna teach you virgins some callouts," said England.
Rocky Horror follows a call-and-response structure. Unfortunately, the callouts aren’t family friendly, but the props are!
The audience can buy “participation bags” in the lobby before the show. In them, there’s a lighter, playing cards, newspaper, rice, and a squirt gun.
As anticipation builds in the audience, the cast, crew and live band pump each other up backstage. They form a "shoval," or show-oval, by holding hands and forming a circle in the dressing room.
They chant, "energy, energy all around, it can bring you up, it can bring you down," in unison over-and-over again. As their voices get louder their bodies rise from a crouch on the ground into a burst of dancing and jumping.
Then, in the theater, the lights go down, the music starts, and the show begins. The first act includes iconic tunes like the "Time Warp" and unveiling of Rocky himself.
This year's production mimics the stage design, costumes, and delivery of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which starred Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon. Director England says that's by design.
" I wanted to bring it back to the classic and just show everyone kind of like—this is why we love it," said England. This is their first time directing any type of show.
Ahead of tonight’s performance, they explained their father introduced them to the movie. It was one of the first times they saw queer people front-and-center on screen.
"It completely changed everything in my brain as a nine-year-old. The music was something I'd never seen before and the characters were obviously something I had never seen before," said England.
The Rocky Horror Show is a frisky rock ’n’ roll musical where campy horror meets science fiction. The plot centers around a young couple that gets stuck in a haunted castle with a gender non-conforming mad scientist.
“Seeing a man dressed in women’s clothing is still something that people are a little bit afraid of," England said, "and I think it’s something we should show more often—make people less scared of it.”
Fans consider the show revolutionary for its celebration of sexual freedom and defiance of social norms. Critics call out the transphobic villain tropes and outdated use of the word "transvestite" surrounding Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a gender-flexible, sex-crazed scientist.
But even though some material may be dated, England says the show's focus on queerness and gender identify is relevant today with anti-LGBTQ legislation still a human rights struggle.
After final bows, the crowd trickles out to mingle and take pictures with the actors. While the show continues to influence audiences year-after-year, it's left a permanent mark on one fan here.
Santa Clara-based burlesque performer Rachel Rentfrow whose stage name is “Shiza Minelli,” has a tattoo of Dr. Frank-N-Furter on the inside or her right forearm. She’s also wearing a Frank-N-Furter t-shirt and holds a purse covered with the faces of actors from the movie, which she credits for sparking her queer and kink awakening.
“All of my vanilla friends came over for my 13th birthday party and we put a tent out in the backyard and I brought the TV, the VCR and we watched Rocky Horror Picture Show 13 times," she said.
As a kid, the show taught her you don’t have to be "normal" or like everybody else—that being different is good. Decades later, she says it holds a new meaning.
"I use it, I guess, more (as) escapism. Where you can all come together and all be weird together and just have a really good time and you forget about everything that is happening out there cause you just have the happiness and the weirdness and the just—Rocky Horror.”
While this weekend’s shows are completely sold out with only standby tickets available, Paper Wing plans to resurrect an all-star Rocky Horror cast to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary next year.
