The Rocky Horror Show LIVE
at the Circle in the Square Theater, New York City

RHS LIVE On Friday, November Third, 2000, a group of freaks from the Castle Transylvanians and Sincere Lust drove up to New York City to see the Broadway revival of the Rocky Horror Show. (Afterwards, we saw The NYC Cast's Rocky Horror Picture Show in another part of the town before heading back home.)

 
My ticket, and a playbill. I had a really good view of the stage (it's a small theater, and there were only six rows between me and the action). Naturally, there was no photography allowed; but I managed to snap off a few inconspicuously with the flash off...

This one was taken as I took my seat. The faux theater front, with curtain and arch over it, all collapsed to the sides of the stage after "Dammit Janet" and returned for the floor show. The "chandelier" on the ceiling is lowered twice, once for Frank 'N' Furter's (Tom Hewitt) entrance, and at the end of the show to raise up Riff Raff (Raul Esparza) and Magenta (Daphne Rubin-Vega).

 
LEFT: This is the little nook from which the Criminologist (Dick Cavett) delivered many of his lines (when he wasn't up front with the other actors; such as, his parts of "I Can Make You A Man" and "Planet Schmanet - Wise Up Janet Weiss"). We were sitting just a couple of seats away from him, so we got some great AP interaction with him... but this made me extra-cautious with my photography. During "The Time Warp", he pulled a girl up from the audience to dance with him; a nice touch when very few people in the audience were looking his way. Overall, he did a good job (even if he did call me a motherfucker, in his first AP response of the show).

RIGHT: "Science Fiction Double Feature" -- The Usherettes ( Joan Jett on right; Jett joined in on the second verse) walk through the movie theater seats (which flipped into the floor after "Dammit Janet") and are accompanied by Phantoms sitting in the seats (along with four mannequins). When the curtains open, Brad and Janet are on the screen, until each (Janet first) steps off-screen and onto the stage (when the character on screen walks off the edge, the actor on stage steps out from behind the screen). The Phantoms are the "audience" for the movie, singing along and offering some callbacks. (The projector in the Crim's nook is the one that's "projecting" the movie of the events that he's narrating.)

 
LEFT: "Over at the Frankenstein Place" -- The movie theater set has disappeared, revealing the band in an area behind the stage. Brad Majors (Jarrod Emick) and Janet Weiss (Alice Ripley) are in the foreground singing, and the Phantoms are climbing the wavy bars separating the band from the actors.

RIGHT: The beginning of "The Time Warp".

The lab scene. Brad and Janet are wearing latex labcoats that look like giant condoms, and Frank is wearing a green latex labcoat. This is before all of the glass flasks and beakers lowered from the ceiling -- the lab was full of shiny things.

There's a big gap here, the pictures I took of Rocky's (Sebastian LaCause) "The Sword of Damocles", Eddie's (Lea Delaria) "Hot Patootie", and a couple of other shots didn't come out as more than lots of multicolored streaks. I liked the birth of Rocky, but didn't think much of Lea's performance as Eddie (she did a better job as Dr. Scott, which she played as Doctor Strangelove -- not a bad performance, but the Strangelove idea has probably been done by several dozen shadowcast Dr. Scotts over the years).

The bedroom scenes were done behind backlit sheets -- much the same way that many Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcasts do it -- and were pretty good... "Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me" was done with Janet and Rocky covering most of the performance area (as well as the often-utilized Phantoms); Magenta and Columbia (Joan Jett) were hanging from the grid in front of the band to watch them. At the end of the number, just before the lights go black, Janet rips off her bra... Some say it was gratuitous and unneccessary, others point out that you have to go farther to try to be shocking/surprising with Rocky these days. I don't have strong feelings either way; I almost blinked and missed it.

They did something very interesting for "Once in a While" ("They managed to make it interesting," in the words of my castmate Kate) -- the had Phantoms dressed as Janet circling Brad and accompanying him for the first half of the song... Then the Phantoms pulled off the dresses and blonde wigs and were all Frank 'N' Furters underneath. They spent the rest of the song seducing him, inserting lines from "I Can Make You a Man" between his lines.

 
LEFT: The Floor Show -- interesting costumes. Red hands all over them gripping their bodies; and while Frank sang "Whatever happened to Fay Wray", the Phantoms were behind him dressed in black, waving red-clad arms. (Rather than lifting his blanket to reveal fishnets later, Dr. Scott removed his black leather glove and found that he also had a red glove underneath.)

RIGHT: "I'm Going Home" -- Brad, Janet, and Scott on the left, Rocky and Columbia on the right, Frank singing in the foreground, and behind him are Riff Raff and Magenta in some funky shiny glowy spacesuits.

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