“The Rocky Horror Show” by Richard O’ Brien is hands down on my top five list of musicals that I’m obsessed with, so finding out that this musical was going to be done by Concordia College Theatre, I was shocked, primarily due to the sexual nature of the show, but that is what made it exciting to see.
At first, entering the Frances Frazier Comstock, I was pleasantly surprised to see that each of the showings I went to, had lines of people waiting to get into the show. You could say that the anticipation of the musical was equally felt throughout the crowds.
The first thing I noticed was the poster about the History of Queer Culture and Rocky Horror, and other posters explaining some of the languages used in the musical, explaining if it is a good term or not. I thought this was a very educational and important thing that Concordia College Theatre has done since the “The Rocky Horror Show” is quite controversial.
One of my favorable memories of the musical was before it began. About 15 minutes before the show, the phantoms were starting to interact with the audience asking if anyone was new to the show, and if you were, you got a giant V placed on your head, symbolizing being a virgin.
This foreshadowed the many ways the audience could interact throughout the show, some of my favorite interactions included, the armpit crew, shouting from the crowd every time we heard the name Janet or Brad, the Time Warp dance and lastly, by far the best moment of audience interaction happened during the song “Sweet Transvesitte” when Dr. Frank-N-Furter sang the first part of the word Anticipation, waiting to finish the word, the audience went crazy shouting “Say it” as he would finish the word.
In general, I thought all the performances in the musical didn’t disappoint, everyone was so into their character, and it gave such an authentic feeling throughout the performance. I would have to say that my favorite performance was Dr. Frank-N-Furter, performed by Ben Salazer, he really captured the mysterious, sensual, charismatic character that is Dr. Frank-N-Furter, from the way he walked, talked, and interacted with other characters or audience members was overall outstanding on his part, that performance convinced me I was watching the real Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
One neat aspect of the musical was the set design and how the phantoms were used throughout the musical. The set gave science fiction, evil scientist laboratory, with a runway in the middle. Although a simple and clean design, it was innovative, especially with the use of the phantoms such as the phantoms being used as Brad’s Car. The set design really left it up to the performers to shine throughout the performance, which was a great payoff in the end.
“The Rocky Horror Show” by Richard O’Brien was one to see, and I’m sure it has made history as the most sexually induced musical performed in Concordia College Theatre.
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