Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me
Fishnets, corsets, falsies and red lips are just the beginning. With an utter disregard to cold weather, decency or nudity laws, people line up nearly every Saturday night at midnight adorned in risqué, novel and halloween-esque clothing, on Santa Monica Boulevard and Sawtelle Avenue.
With lines down the block for a movie that's been released since 1975, it's clear that the Rocky Horror Picture Show still has a fierce and enthusiastic following.
The party starts before you even step through the NuArt Theater's doors, when a cast member comes around and graffiti's first timers, or "virgins" as they call them, with lipstick across their foreheads. After all of the virgins have an inappropriate word emblazoned across their faces, everyone files into the theater and takes their pick of the reclining, velvet-lined seats. Probably not knowing what you've gotten yourself into, you sit back and listen to the game plan and ground rules as recited by a member of the shadow cast.
Coined "shadow cast" because they will be reenacting every single line and gesture from the entire feature length film as their respective characters, there are also members of the cast who contribute solely by screaming obscenities and wise-cracks at the projector screen in between scripted lines, and verbally harassing any audience member who looks predictably overwhelmed by their blatantly overwhelming surroundings (virgins).
If you think you're familiar with Rocky Horror, but you've never been to a live showing, you're kidding yourself.
An experience that any true Rocky fan could not go without and one that many fans adopt as ritual, watching live shadow casts, like the NuArt's "Sins o' the Flesh" cast, is crucial to the true appreciation of all that is the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
With the cast members playing Janet and Brad gallivanting up and down the theater aisles in the throws of sexual confusion, and Dr. Frank-n-Furter thrusting ferociously and miming the countless screams throughout the film, there is almost too much going on at one time for anyone to successfully absorb. One must sit back and enjoy the insanity, the chaos and, possibly, the inebriated fellow to his/her left getting a little frisky with the touch-a, touch-a, touching.
It is inadvisable to make your live Rocky experience your absolute first Rocky experience. If you've never seen the movie at all, you might get a little caught up on trying to follow the plot.
Trying to understand what Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry are actually saying to each other during the movie would be quite futile, for much more audible are the expletives and callbacks being shouted back at the screen by various shadow cast and zealous audience members.
Think: well thought out and rehearsed "that's what she said" jokes, perversity at it's finest, and any and all opportunities to use the word "slut". Some members of the cast, like Dennis Gene Miller, have been a part of the Rocky Horror family since the early 1980's.
A well-seasoned cast member, Miller has participated in the show in every imaginable way, from lead roles like Dr. Frank, Rocky or Riff Raff, to tech and backstage work, to pre-show virgin-graffiti-ing. After being apart of the Rocky Horror World for so long, Miller says that his favorite thing to do these days is see what kind of a rouse he can get out of audience members.
During the scene where Brad and Janet approach Frank-n-Furter's Transylvanian castle in the pouring rain, cast members walk through the isles and chuck cupfuls of water into the audience. "If you throw the water just right" Miller says, "the teenaged girls just scream".
As Halloween rapidly approaches, tickets for the Rocky Horror Picture Show rapidly disappear. If any of this sounds appealing to you, whether you're a long-time fan and first-time viewer, or just plain enthusiast of all things strange, you'd better hop to it and buy your tickets ASAP.
Halloween weekend is sure to be a packed house, and one of the best times of the year to get a good first-timer experience. Remember, it's a jump to the left, and then a step to the