The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show

Rehearsal has begun for The Rocky Horror Show at The Lakewood. Our cast is sensational. Our producers and creative team are excited about the show and light up when they talk about it. And I am playing one of the most iconic roles of all time. Saturday night, I attended The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Clinton Street Theatre with our director and a few of our cast. It has probably been close to twenty years since I have gone, and, while much is the same, I find the differences interesting.

At 20, you arrive to the theatre with six friends in tow and emerge from your Hyundai Excel, all toting duffle bags full of rice, newspapers, toast (or tortillas once, as I recall), wieners, lighters, party hats, toilet paper, noisemakers, spray bottles, balloons, rubber gloves, and the occasional flask.
At 40, you arrive with a piece of toast, a handful of rice, and the Business section from Saturday's paper, which you take home with you after the movie remembering you hadn't read it yet. I'm not wasting a roll of toilet paper. Toilet paper is expensive!

At 20, you yell at the screen until you are hoarse, you run up on stage and dance, and you hardly ever listen to anyone else as your primary goal is to deliver the most perfectly timed and most clever callbacks.
At 40, you hardly speak because it's been twenty years and there are so many new cultural references, you just want to hear what everyone is saying. Also, it takes less yelling to go hoarse at this age.

At 20, after the movie, you drive home up Beach Blvd, with at least five of your six original friends in tow, do a couple red-light green-lights, go home and chat, listen to the B52s, watch TV and go to Denny's at 7 am for breakfast. Staying up for 36 hours straight is a normal weekend.
At 40, you plan your Saturday strategically with naps and coffee in order to stay awake for a midnight show.

At 20, you know every single word of the script and score.
At 40, you are lucky to remember your own lines.

I will never forget the first time I attended The Rocky Horror Picture Show with my fabulous friend, Nicole, at the AMC Marina Pacifica in Long Beach, California. I had no idea what was in store. I certainly didn't know that I would be sacrificed for being a virgin that night. I remember being miffed that Nicole and all her friends would just assume I was chaste and throw me to the wolves. Then, of course, I learned that virgin means something different in Rocky World. I have lost touch with Nicole, but I am sure she is still fabulous wherever she is. We met working in a call center. I was so young I had to obtain a worker's permit and get parental consent to have a part time job. Nicole would come over some days, and we would raid my brother's stash of small liquor bottles and play my Cabaret movie soundtrack. She would be Sally, and I would be the emcee. She nailed Sally Bowles. I think she even painted her fingernails green. We only occasionally argued when we would listen to a different soundtrack like Annie or Gypsy when we both insisted on playing the female lead.
Anyway, that first screening was overwhelming. I didn't understand much of what I saw or heard. But I certainly understood Tim Curry as Dr Frank N Furter, and a lifelong love affair began. A couple years later, I started going on the reg with a group of friends I'd met working at The La Habra Depot Playhouse. Our dressing rooms were literally old train cars behind the theatre. We thought we were making some cutting edge theatre, let me tell you.
I bought the movie soundtrack AND the original Roxy Cast recording. I learned every word and every inflection, right down to the part where my vinyl album of the movie soundtrack skipped. It was right where Tim sang "Dig it, if you caaaaan." CaaaaanCaaaanCaaaan. So when we would listen to it, that's how we would sing it.

The Balboa Theatre in Newport Beach, California, was a historic and sacred place. Originally opened as The Ritz Theatre in 1928, it had been purchased by Pussycat Theaters in 1973 and was used for adult films until 1975 when Landmark bought it. In 1978, they started using it to play Rocky on Saturday nights. There were a limited number of 35mm reels of the film available. So Balboa had to share theirs with the Wilshire in Fullerton. The Wilshire would start their showing before midnight and then send a courier with the first reel of the film down to Balboa to start theirs at midnight (or whenever the courier arrived). And so on until all reels had been delivered and shown. By the time I started going, the Wilshire had closed and the Balboa owned the print.

There was a group called Midnight Insanity that would shadow the film on the stage. When the Balboa closed, they moved the show up to The Art Theatre in Long Beach which, it so happens, was four blocks from the apartment in which I lived for twelve years before moving to Portland! So I would still see the show occasionally. But, by then, I was no longer an avid Rocky goer.

Rocky was special for me for so many reasons. Putting the seal of approval on "otherness" and encouraging showy performance art and engagement with other "freaks" did a lot to nurture the person I am today. Yep, you can thank Rocky for that. I also associate it with so many memories of hanging out in Newport Beach. If you drove further down the peninsula from the theater, you would reach the jetties where friends and I would go late at night and walk out to the very end of the jetties where the waves would crash up on to them and you could see the crabs scurrying down into their crevices. I remember taking my first girlfriend AND one of my first boyfriends down there. Not on the same night.

I absolutely worshipped Tim Curry. I cannot imagine anyone else immortalizing that role, even though Mick Jagger made a play for it and probably would have been amazing in a different way.
I got to meet Tim Curry once when he was touring in Me and My Girl. I will never forget it because I had this expectation that I was going to meet this fabulous larger than life character. And, of course, he IS fabulous. But I remember feeling like I was looking in a mirror. Same height, same build, similar face shape and expressions, mild mannered, polite, gracious. He was just as human as could be. And I thought "This is a master storyteller who can become these fantastic characters from a little human shell." And he has proven it time and again.

Rocky Horror has never been out of my life for long. Hearing the opening chords of Time Warp or Dammit, Janet or Sweet Transvestite can still lift my spirits and get my blood pumping. And now I get to hear it every day and sing it with a super talented cast and perform it for audiences for six weeks. Frank N Furter is a role I have always felt destined to play. And, even if I didn't have the chance to do it on stage professionally, the character would always live inside of me. I realize, of course, that the role has been played thousands of times by actors far fiercer than myself. I know I am not breaking any new ground. But the magic of theatre is, when we take on these projects, it's a moment in time. It is the only time we will be with these people telling this story this way at this theater for these patrons. So, in that, I guess we are breaking new ground, and it feels like an honor to be part of it.

Starting rehearsal and attending the midnight screening have made me so nostalgic. I have been having so many memories of those friends, late nights, singing at the top of our lungs, beautiful Newport Beach and the Balboa peninsula, the Crab Cooker, the jetties, young love.

I think also the nostalgia is hitting me because of where I am in life. Tommy and I are planning a move to Charleston, SC, after Rocky closes. Not only might this be my last show in Portland, it may be my last show on the West Coast. Heck, it may be my last show! Who knows what life in Charleston will bring. Perhaps I will finally get to be a Real Housewife. A RHoC! But I do think about my life on the West Coast and what a California boy I've always been, even though now I'm an Oregonian. But what if that's it? The West Coast chapter is over? How can I not reminisce? Half my life is behind me, and I'm moving on to the latter half in a new part of the world. I don't mean that to sound maudlin. I am actually excited to see what this next chapter brings. But I can tell you the first act of this man's story (First two acts? I'm old.) has been chock full of awesome sauce. I feel it is poignant that I am capping this part of my journey playing a role in a show that informed this part of my journey.

Hey, if you've read this far, maybe you want to come see the show. What am I saying? OF COURSE you want to see the show! Here's a link for tickets....
https://tix4.centerstageticketing.com/sites/lakewoodtheatre/showdates.php?s_id=743