Two years after homosexuality was stricken from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a decade before AIDS would devastate a generation, and nearly 30 years before gay marriage was deemed legal in the United States, The Rocky Horror Picture Show made its debut. It opened at the height of disco in 1975, only it was louder, bawdier, and unapologetically queer.
At first, it flopped. That is until word got out that a campy, low budget film was calling all misfits to the midnight marquee. The Time Warp theme song wormed its way into brains and became an anthem and flag for people looking to be free from judgement.
Part horror satire, part glam rock opera, part campy queer musical, creators Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman tell the story of a young couple, Brad and Janet, who seek shelter from a storm in the mansion of a mad scientist, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by Tim Curry in his first film role.
Fifty years ago, Curry told producers the movie would end his career in Hollywood. Within weeks, the film’s risqué themes prevented theaters from making a profit, so they pulled it from theaters. Seeing its potential to attract counterculture audiences, 20th Century Fox re-released it for midnight showings. Audiences found its fluid transgender theme funny, irreverent, and progressively refreshing. A year later, in 1976 the Waverly Theater in New York City cemented its cult following among the queer community encouraging audience participation. That launched the first shadowcast where scantily clad fans showed up in outfits mimicking Curry. They sang when he sang, they strutted when he strutted across the 30-foot screen in fishnet tights and a leather corset. It soon took off on feathered shoulders to theaters across New York for more midnight shows.
"These tickets are out in four seconds and people are mad that they can't go," said Nathan Ayotte between rehearsal takes with Syracuse University’s Black Box Players. He played Brad in this Halloween season’s run.
No matter the film’s age, most theater majors remember seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time alongside a shadowcast.
"I was introduced to Rocky Horror when I was a young teen. And it was immediately a very community-based activity," reminisced James Ragen. The SU shadowcast director went to see it with older adults, "[They] knew all of these things about it and knew these callouts and callbacks and these audience participation things. And I always wanted to do that."
Tavien Goodson, who played Frank-N-Furter, was a freshman when he first experienced the Rocky Horror Picture Show, "I just instantly fell in love with it,” he said it spoke to him, “because of its themes of self-expression and non-conformity and finding power in being different. And as someone who is queer and black, that is everything that I am."
On show night at the old barn on SU's South Campus, he was in good company as a sea of corsets, fishnets, and black leather poured into the theater’s lobby. Sequins and glitter were the norm, and nothing was too bedazzled. The heels were high, the alcohol flowed freely from squirt guns in Rocky Horror tradition, and the crowd was lively. But as the show began, and callouts begin raining down, the atmosphere buzzed with a joy and a freedom hard to find anywhere else. It was only topped by the electric buildup of Curry and Goodson’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter grand entrance. Goodson sashayed down the center aisle clad in leather on six-inch heels as the crowd went ballistic.
While Rocky Horror stands for all who feel a little different, it has appealed to many more than its modest budget of just $900,000 could have predicted. In a way, its success is a tribute itself to perseverance against all odds.
"[When] I'm standing in rehearsal and watching it through the mirror and I'm like, wow, they had no budget - gay people in a dream." Ayotte chimed.
The showings, then as now, continue in exulted themes of self-expression and acceptance. For cast member Maggie Weller, it’s that joy that draws her.
"I think it's just a space where there's no wrong way to be yourself,” she said smiling while dressed as Janet in the shadowcast. “You can dress up, there's all the callouts, there's people and characters that are larger than life, and none of the characters in the movie are apologetic for who they are."
Fifty years later, audiences still wait with an•tic•i•pation to enjoy the synchronicity between Curry and his shadow mates. The movie that was once a flop now boasts the longest running theatrical run in cinematic history. Seeing the film’s 50th was for many among the Black Box Players’ castmates a sign of hope.
"To have people who've never met someone who has cross-dressed come see a shadow cast where most people in the ensemble are cross-dressing, where Tavian's cross-dressing, it's creating this sense of gender expansion that is currently being diminished and being forced to be hidden again."
A look around the theater’s lobby revealed only emboldened spirits for the queer and camp of Rocky Horror. It also exposed the tradition is still growing as red "Vs" were scrawled acrosss foreheads of virgin first-timers venturing into their first Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcast. Their faces reveal a mix of shock, surprise, and pure joy while drinking in the festivities. They are among the newest to experience the open arms of The Rocky Horror Picture Show welcoming all, without question, in a warm, non-judgmental embrace.
