Welcome to Behind the Curtain on KHSU, a show where we take a look behind the scenes of local theatre and other performance art in Humboldt County.
There’s a lot of fun traditions the community looks forward to in October – haunted houses, pumpkin patches, parties, costumes and candy – but for those lovers of campy performance art, there’s another Halloween tradition: Rocky Horror.
For many people this means attending late night screenings of the 1975 film, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a cult classic that often features a “shadow cast” — live actors performing in sync with the movie — while audience members shout “call outs” and use props to emulate scenes in the film. But what some people might not know is that before the movie, Richard O’Brien wrote "The Rocky Horror Show", a musical for the stage. And every couple of years or so, around Halloween time, our own Ferndale Repertory Theatre puts on the production, giving the audience a unique opportunity for behaviors you would usually not see in a live theatre. For this premiere episode of Behind the Curtain, we crashed a rehearsal and sat down with some of the actors to learn more about their experience and what audiences can expect from this unconventional production.
For those who aren’t familiar with Rocky Horror, one of the traditions of attending the show includes audience call backs, where attendees yell out funny and, more often than not, dirty, additions to lines from the show. The show also includes audience use of props, with one scene even including throwing toilet paper on the stage. This can present a fun challenge for the actors, who aren’t necessarily used to this type of interaction. And some cast members can’t help but do the callbacks during rehearsals.
“The Rocky Horror Show” opens at the Ferndale Repertory Theatre on Friday, Oct.17 and runs weekends through Sunday, Nov. 2. You can find more information and tickets at ferndalerep.org. Thank you to the entire cast and crew, and to all the staff at Ferndale Repertory Theatre. Thanks for listening to Behind the Curtain on KHSU. And if you have an upcoming production that you would like featured on Behind the Curtain, you can email us at khsu@humboldt.edu
