‘Rocky Horror’ steps onto GCSU campus

Imagine being an actor stepping under the bright stage lights. As you begin to deliver your lines, the audience starts screaming and throwing toast on stage. A movie is playing loudly behind you and you are talking to a man wearing only gold panties. Is this a theatre major’s worst nightmare? No, it is a live production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Since 1976, according to the official Web site, audiences have filed into theaters at midnight to see people act out the movie in front of the movie playing on a big screen. Audiences usually have props, whether they bring them from home or buy prop kits at the theater. Props are used or thrown during specific parts of the show. Audience members also have lines adding to the heavy dose of audience participation. It is a theater experience like no other. Now, a group of students are going to put on their own production of this cult classic: toast, toilet paper and all.

“I wanted to do something with a lot of spectacle. It is going to be a big party for everyone,” said theatre major Dottie Pratt.

Pratt is the play’s director and producer for this run. She worked in partnership with Karen Berman, chair of the theatre department, to find a fun, yet cost effective play that would appease the students’ want for a musical.

“(Berman) was very enthusiastic about students taking initiative,” Pratt said. “She was very willing to help with whatever we needed and to get this going.”

With the teaming of students and faculty, the production promises to shock and awe.

The GCSU production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is set to run only on Oct. 30 at midnight, as is tradition in the long run of this unique show. Student tickets will be $3 and the proceeds will go to the Katrina Project, which was started by Berman. Prop bags will also be sold to make the experience as genuine as possible.

Everything from lights and sound to costumes and makeup will be entirely student produced.

“We have a very small budget which dictates how many times we can run the show due to royalties as well as the costumes we have access to,” Pratt said. “The actors will provide as much of their own costumes as possible and then we will use what we can find in costume storage.”

Susan Sarandon, one of the original movie’s stars, commented in an interview recently that she thought most of its charm came from its low-budget construction, according to wenn.com. That, and the cult following “Rocky Horror,” has collected over the years makes it a must see.

The craziness, awkwardness and absurdness of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is something you have to see to believe and you do not want to miss it.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 19 2008. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry