Two (and sometimes three) times a month for the last seven years, Red Bank’s beloved art house cinema has packed in the crowds for a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. On the occasion of the cult film’s 50th anniversary, redbankgreen writer Nicollette Brady went behind the scenes for a look at how this wild, wonderful tradition continues in Red Bank.
By NICOLLETTE BRADY
The show and its players are such a natural fit at Basie Center Cinema House – the beloved local movie theater that demonstrates an unbridled affection for all things oddball – and they so consistently and enthusiastically pack the house Friday after Friday, that one could be forgiven for assuming that the whole Rocky experience has always been a Red Bank staple.
Finally, one recent Friday, I was able to experience Rocky Horror the way it’s meant to be enjoyed, with raucous audience participation, a dance party, audience props and a sense of community that makes a newcomer feel like they’ve been a part of the party all along.
But first, a primer for the uninitiated (or to use the Rocky parlance, “virgins”): The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 independent film based on the 1973 stage production, The Rocky Horror Show.
The plot goes thusly: a very sweet, very square young couple become engaged, and break down en route to sharing the happy news with an old teacher.
Looking for a hand, the pair stumble toward the nearest residence, which, as happenstance would dictate, is a kind of glam rock, polyamorous Frankenstein’s castle occupied by a wonderful cast of increasingly campy denizens headed by Tim Curry’s dazzling Frank-N-Furter; a corseted, stiletto-sporting Lothario who is ostensibly devoted to building himself a blonde hunk, but becomes mighty invested in our ingenue couple.
If you think I didn’t try hard enough to keep that synopsis short, please know that I omitted an entire section on aliens and the singer Meat Loaf (both of whom are extremely plot-significant parts of the film.)
The movie’s got a ripper soundtrack, a quippy script that playfully lambasts the b-movies of its time, and it boasts many great performances and setpieces, but arguably the element most crucial to propelling RHPS to unprecedented cult success is the fact that the film is loudly and euphorically queer.
Inside Frank’s castle, the couple, Brad and Janet, are introduced to a world of vibrancy, gender/sexual fluidity, and sensual liberation, which is an appealing 180 from the couple’s prim, polished, staunchly conventional home represented by a small austere church in the beginning of the movie.
The two find themselves enticed by this glamorous world even after their initial discomfort with it, and as the film progresses they flirt closer and closer with becoming a part of it.
Just over fifty years from the film’s release, the tradition is going stronger than ever, and troupes of dedicated “shadow casts” loyally perform the show, in sync with the movie itself; lipsyncing, dancing, speaking or singing along with lines and so on.
Audiences are not only not dissuaded from interrupting the performance in any way, but are actively instructed to and strongly encouraged to participate.
The production crew Friday Nite Specials Cast have been keeping this great tradition alive and well in Central Jersey over the last thirty years, bouncing from Edison to Woodbridge to Edison… again, before popping over to Strathmore, and then finally coming on over to our little town and setting up shop.
One recent Friday, I had the pleasure of looking behind the curtain to see how they make that magic happen.
Ryan, who has the most seniority of the cast, having joined the company in 2001 and whom members of the cast playfully refer to as, “Dad” acted as my tour guide before the show.
The elbow grease each cast member puts into each show is indicative of a deep and inspiring passion for what they do, and it results in some outrageously high production value.
Be it creating the movie-replica level costumes, designing and producing show merch, or running the sales table of the theater, the players tackle every task with aplomb and pluck. Ryan himself has taken to woodworking so as to be able to create custom props without having to outsource the production elements.
Props grow increasingly more sophisticated, choreo gets tighter, setup gets quicker. On the Friday I went, the earlier movie showing in the theater didn’t end until 9:25, meaning the players couldn’t begin setting up until only 35 minutes before the show.
They immediately put their money where their Disembodied Floating Red Lips were, transforming the theater in no time flat.
The wonderful Frank and Columbia (Feldy and Kat, respectively) actors of the night, had their eyebrows completely glued down and their intricate stage makeup expertly applied before I’d even settled on which seat to choose. One gets the sense these players have developed a deep muscle memory for the entire process, and it’s a great feeling to sit back and watch the pros do their thing.
When showtime finally arrived, the players took to hyping up the crowd with a dance party and with quick disclaimers to the “virgins” in the audience, providing them with a flyover view of the experience, and explaining a few of the easier-to-adopt inside jokes to them.
From there, the virgins were called up front for a rite-of-passage ceremony; the nature of which I will not reveal, so as to preserve the sanctity of the institution, but if you’re concerned it’s something embarrassing or scary, let me put your mind at ease; as someone who is pretty easily embarrassed and scared, it was completely fun and fine.
The performance itself was, unsurprisingly, a complete blast. The shadow cast know these parts like the back of their hands and play them with impish wit and a playful wink. Looking through the cast list on their troupe’s website, you see that just about everybody is trained to play multiple characters, and that really comes through. These performers know this world inside and out, and every gesticulation and facial expression is firmly rooted in that knowledge.
Nobody missed a trick, and the live, kinetic energy of the performance was incredibly infectious. There’s essentially no silence between any lines – every pause, blink and breath in the movie has been memorized by those who hold it close, and they’ve got a one-liner, a pun or a callback ready to deploy and fill that space at a moment’s notice.
Three bucks will earn you a bag of props to whip out at various points in sync with the performance (guided by helpful cue cards and instructions doled out by the wonderful ensemble players) letting even the newest newbie feel like they’re a part of the action.
The Friday audience was composed of a healthy mix of virgins, and heaps of Rocky diehards who have found a sense of community in this and similar scenes. They playfully try to out-esoteric-quote one another, and the shadow cast cheekily encourages the fun.
Although Rocky is a beloved institution, it’s one inherently built on irreverence and kitsch; nothing is really off limits or sacrosanct. The cast members know this, and they gamely play back with the audience and let them in on the fun.
Even literally in some cases, as numerous audience members are brought up on stage to play minor roles throughout the show (yours truly was one such audience member, and I got a pretty plumb role – not gonna lie, it’s already changed me), keeping the meta tradition of Rocky alive and well and undoubtedly giving countless people the bug to join one of these casts themselves (and you can!)
Smaller, indie theaters tend to be the best partners for Rocky, Ryan told me, and the Basie Center Cinema, which also hosts the annual Indie Street Film Festival, and has biweekly “Midnight Madness” horror movie showings, curated and presented by Chris Bahr of Tape Hell (in an Instagram post promoting the collaboration, the theater promised to bring the “best” and “weirdest” movies to the town (I’m a regular attendee and can enthusiastically attest the veracity of both claims; it’s a MAD fun time), is certainly no exception.
The theater house has been largely customized to accommodate the show; lighting and A/V cues are hardcoded into the theater and do an extremely effective job of both setting ambiance and accentuating dramatic and comedic moments. The layout of the theater also contributed well to the more choreo-heavy numbers and the dramatic ending setpiece.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show became a cult favorite due to the cavalcades of wonderful weirdos throughout the decades who shared a DIY ethos and a taste for the unusual.
The Friday Nite Specials Casts production at the Basie runs about three hours long in total and includes the dance party/beginning ceremony, and the movie/the live performance.
Tickets for the event are ten dollars, and an additional three will grab you a prop bag, which, while not a completely necessary part of the experience strictly speaking, does add a lot of value in my eye (it’s just objectively fun cracking glo sticks, using clappers, and throwing rolls of toilet paper in a movie theater).
With or without the add-on I now adamantly consider the Rocky Horror Picture Show live to be an absolute must-see whether you live right here in town or not. In terms of best bang-for-your-buck entertainment, it’s a no-brainer, but more crucially, the care, professionalism, meticulousness and heart that the members of the Friday Nite Specials Cast show for what they do is a gorgeous thing to experience.
In addition to the regular Rocky shows, the troupe also has intermittent events like Rocky Prom back in May, or their upcoming Pride event. Additionally, the players shadow cast other productions such as RHPS’s sequel Shock Wave, (hilariously) Reefer Madness, and (delightfully) Mamma Mia.
The Friday Nite Specials Cast have somehow only been a part of Red Bank history for the last seven years; but they punch so far above their weight in terms of sheer excellence and townwide impact, that I hope they’re here for the long haul; I’ll watch them do the Time Warp again and again.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is presented every first, third and fifth Friday of the month, including this Friday, July 17. Tickets are available here.
