“I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.”
With these words, the narrator, played by Daniel Millhouse, opens the Eastern Michigan University Theater production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which opened Friday night at 8 p.m.
The EMU production, directed by theater and dance professor Phil Simmons, hopes to channel the cult classic movie edition. “It was a very nice surprise,” that the department let him put on the show, Simmons said.
The play, performed on the Quirk Theater stage, is a collage of the movie screenplay and two scripts of the play version.
The cast then took this version and ran with it “I rarely say this, but I’m really sorry rehearsals are over,” Simmons said. “This company is fearless,” he adds, “it’s been marvelous”
“Everyone’s gotten used to the craziness.”
Since the show involves audience participation, the actors performed for about 10 different classes of people, to adjust them to the traditional heckling and audience usage of props. In the unique experience of a Rocky Horror Picture Show, the cast is pelted with playing cards, rice and a water gun barrage. Glow sticks waved around the theater at points and rustled newspapers.
“Its perfect for educational theater,” Simmons said of the unique atmosphere. “There’s a level of contention and focus [to perform with such distraction]”
The set for the play consists of a large, multi-layered centerpiece that doubles as a bandstand for the musicians performing. The cast uses the room in the center as a place for backlit assignations, as well as for dramatic entrances. The set is “a lot of great levels to play on,” Simmons said. However, it presented a challenge to the actors and the show’s notorious high-heeled shoes.
His statement “what set doesn’t need a disco ball?” sums up the play’s glitzy, bright lighting, that not only traverses the stage, but also the audience. The play also utilizes a haze that floated above the stage, creating clouds the lights bounce off of.
The play opened with the company floating through haze as they sang “Science Fiction Double Feature,” and continued with favorites like “Damn It Janet,” “The Time Warp” (with dance steps projected onto a screen to encourage the audience to dance along) and “I Can Make You a Man.” As Frank ‘N’ Furter, played by Matt Andersen, strutted along the stage in six-inch heels, the bizarre and much-loved story progressed to a climax (all puns intended) with the drama of “Floorshow.”
The shows music had everyone, even the stoic narrator, rocking out.
“If there were a way I could infuse glitter into the word fabulous, that would be how I would describe the show. I loved it,” said Allie Genia, a University of Michigan student who traveled to EMU to see the performance.
In addition to giving the audience a thoroughly entreating, interactive time, the show provides a lot of opportunities for the cast.
“It was a great learning experience, a different experience,” said Esther Jentzen, who plays the role of Janet Weiss. “I had to step out of my comfort zone.”
“It was a blast, you don’t really have any restrictions,” said Andersen of the process of building the show.
“I have enjoyed jumping into this weird world and weird script with awesome music,” adds Eric Hohnke, who plays Brad Majors. “The cast has been really great to work with and the crew very helpful.”
As the narrator foreshadows the fate of Brad and Janet in the opening, so too he foreshadows the audience’s experience when he says “It was a night they would remember for a long time.”
