Director........................................Tyler Rock
Assistant Director..........................Fran Forti
Stage Manager.......................Emma Dayhoff
Artistic Producer.....................Arielle Catron
Artistic Producer..............alithia zamantakis
FRANK N FURTER........................Pierce Romey
BRAD MAJORS......................Duncan Frashure
JANET WEISS.........................Sadie Walshaw
RIFF RAFF...................................Cole Nissley
MAGENTA...............................Maddie Shuler
COLUMBIA.................................Alexa Moran
ROCKY........................................Adam Beam
DR. EVERETT SCOTT..................Timothy Diehl
EDDIE.........................................Bill Hoffman
THE CRIMINOLOGIST.................Nate Hallman
THE USHERETTE...............................Piper Kull
TRANSYLVANIANS................Mikayla Germek
Nyla Harteis
Jessica Lichorobiec
Annashae Mason
Emily Moglia
Nicole Wolf
Follow along by clicking here.
Learn what to do with the props in your goodybag and when to use them below:
-Bell: At the beginning of the film is the wedding of Ralph Hapschatt and Betty Munroe. As the newlyweds exit the church, you should ring the bell.
-Newspapers: When Brad and Janet are caught in the storm, Janet covers her head with a newspaper The "Plain Dealer". At this point, you should likewise cover your head.
-Phone Flashlight: During the "There's a light" verse of "Over at the Frankenstein Place, "you should light up the theater by turning on your phone flashlight and holding it up in the air.
-Rubber gloves: During and after the creation speech, Frank snaps his rubber gloves three times. Later, Magenta pulls these gloves off his hands. You should snap your gloves in sync each time to create a fantastic sound effect.
-Mini Kazoos: At the end of the creation speech, the Transylvanians respond with applause and noisemakers. You should do the same with your kazoo.
-Toilet paper: When Dr. Scott enters the lab, Brad cries out "Great Scott!" At this point, you should hurl rolls of toilet paper into the air.
-Party hat: At the dinner table, when Frank puts on a party hat, you should do the same.
-Bell: During the song "Planet Schmanet Janet," ring the bell when Frank sings "Did you hear a bell ring?"
-Cards: During the song "I'm Going Home," Frank sings "Cards for sorrow, cards for pain". At this point you should throw your card.
It's important to understand that we can enjoy Rocky Horror and should also be critical of its language and content.
We live in an objectifying, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic culture that treats any sexuality other than cis straight men’s as an object of titillation or repulsion. Rocky Horror is not the beginning or the end of this dysfunction, but it does feed into this.
For the uninitiated, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the gender-bending fairy godparent of all cult classic midnight movies. Since its release in 1975, devotees have taken to theaters across the nation Saturday night after Saturday night to watch the film, talk back to it, and act it out themselves. Rocky Horror is a performance, a subculture, a way of life. It’s widely considered part of the queer cultural canon for its campy embrace of sexual fluidity and gender transgression. But even as the movie plays with the trappings of gender, it’s not as queer- or trans-affirming as it may seem.
Dr. Frank N. Furter, a “sweet transvestite” who performs science experiments in a corset and fishnet tights, reflects the trope of the transfeminine sexual predator when he tricks Janet into having sex with him by impersonating Brad, and then vice-versa. In a “seduction” narrative that upholds the most misogynistic tenets of rape culture, the formerly straitlaced couple are portrayed as being liberated by Dr. Frank N. Furter’s assault.*
One of the most famous songs in the gender-bending midnight movie is “Sweet Transvestite,” as performed by the louche doctor. The terms “transvestite” and “transsexual” are used throughout the song, but both are transphobic.
Laverne Cox spoke about this: “That was the only apprehension I really had about doing the film was the term transvestite,” Cox told reporters at the Variety’s Power of Women Luncheon. “I’ve been telling people, ‘Please do not go up to a transgender person in 2016 and call them a transvestite, that is an antiquated term.’ But in 1975 when Rocky Horror Picture Show came out transvestite meant a very different thing.” She added, “We don’t use that term anymore, but in the historical context of Rocky Horror it’s appropriate you don’t change the words to an iconic song.”**
The Rocky Horror Show’s principal symbol of queer culture—Frank—exhibits a concerning portrayal when in drag: he oppresses trans and cis women, and he uses power and dominance as tools for oppression and alienation. His “entire camp personality from the beginning, as the raging drag queen” (Aviram 185) mocks trans and cis women. Frank helped revolutionize gender nonconformity during the ‘70s, but in today’s context, he is merely a bisexual dragqueen.*** In this regard, the portrayal of Dr. Frankenfurther as malicious and deceptive and simultaneously as bisexual and gendernonconforming plays into tropes of bisexuals and trans people as duplicitous, deceptive, and dangerous.
*The text before this asterisk was written by Lindsay King-Miller for Them (https://www.them.us/story/rocky-horror-picture-show-consent-boundaries).
**The text before this was written by Jenni Miller for The Cut (https://www.thecut.com/2016/10/laverne-cox-on-what-made-her-apprehensive-about-rocky-horror.html).
***The text before this asterisk was written by Amelia Kinsinger (https://www.ou.edu/content/dam/expowriting/pdfs/(6)%20Kinsinger-Hidden%20Truth%20Rocky%20Horror%20(Reduced).pdf).