Rocky Horrorific Shenanigans

...or, Shenanigans doesn't begin to cover it!

Yes, dearly beloved, Austin Theatre Project's The Rocky Horror Show has been struck.  It is now "one for the books," as they say.  Many thanks to Doc List for the photos, except for the last one, the credit for which goes to Laura Lund, one of the Phantoms.

I had to have a cast shot with me in it, because a time will come that I will have trouble believing that I got to do this.  The guys in black are the most excellent band and the rest are the whacked out, crazy, talented, persistent, indomitable, awesome cast.

We had our ups and downs.  The director, at one point, asked the producer if I was always this difficult to work with....can you imagine?  ME!  Difficult!  Jamais de la vie!  Probably because I tended to forget production meetings while sewing frantically.

Magenta and Columbia.  No, I didn't sew all this stuff.  These ladies have been doing theater for a while, and have a lot of their own things.  Opening on Halloween weekend helped, too...Halloween stores are a good source of cheap fishnets and interesting accessories.

We were supposed to open the day before Halloween, but this happened.  A veritable deluge.  This is the theater parking lot.  We wound up opening on Halloween night, at which point the water level had gone down sufficiently to permit access to the building.  So, we did two shows opening night.

Here's Eddie.  His alter-ego, Dr Scott (or is that Dr von Scott?), accidentally rolled his wheelchair right off the stage during a performance.  Fortunately, he was not seriously hurt and the show went on.

Brad (Asshole!) and Janet (Slut!)  Could they be any cuter?  Brad's lovely ballad that was cut from the movie was one of the best songs in the show...and none was less than superb.  Janet's Touch Me gave me goosebumps.

 The director went in an interesting direction with The Narrator, making her a Miss Marple sort of criminologist.  He said he wanted peacock feathers on her hat...I messaged him from The Veterans Connection thrift shop and told him I had the whole damn bird.

(A side note about The Veterans' Connection...it's an awesome thrift shop in Round Rock that exists to assist veterans any way they can.  If you have some time, stop by there...they have great stuff and they are coin and military memorabilia experts.  They gave us a lot of things we used in the show, in exchange for an ad in the program.)

Rocky, himself. No one could have better rocked the gold shorts and winged tennies!

Riff Raff, in all his creepy glory.  Another whose voice raised goosebumps on my neck...

These are the Phantoms, as they are designated in the script.  In the movie, they were the oddly tailcoated party guests in Time Warp and the audience for the Floor Show near the end.  In the stage show, they are almost ubiquitous.  The director wanted them to represent different fetishes, so that's what I did.

The Sweet Transvestite, himself.  I have seen this actor play everything from Snoopy in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown to the Donkey in Shrek to the choreographer in Love, Valour, Compassion, but I had never seen this side of him before, and I love it.  He was very tall in those patent platform boots!

His Act I costume included an interesting pair of shorts, made of black satin, with black mesh inserts back and front.  Due to the nature of the show, we had to have him wear a black thong so we couldn't see everything he has.  The night before closing, he came flying into the greenroom, saying, "Emergency!  Emergency!  My thong has fallen apart!  I need something black to put down the front of my shorts!"  I had a black iron-on patch in my sewing kit (like you do), so he used that for a scene, but it wouldn't stay put without ironing it onto something; he eventually borrowed a pair of drawers from one of the women.

Then, last night...the last night, this happened:

The lace jumpsuit was vintage (thanks, Olin, for the cape, the jumpsuit and the wig), and not really up for the stresses of this particular show.  It had to be mended before we started and more every week. Last night, a huge rent opened up right where his butt cheek meets his thigh, and there was no way he could go on like that and no time to change it out for a pair of fishnet tights or something.  So, there I was, praying he hadn't had beans for dinner...

All in all, this was a bucket show experience.  Mille Mercis to Austin Theatre Project for letting me play!