An Auburn student group is getting off to a rocky start in the new year. The Auburn University Players, the student-run theater organization, announced the January dates for its annual performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The typically raucous performances of the cult classic will take place Jan. 25, 26 and 28 at SkyBar. The doors open at 9 p.m. and the show begins at 10 p.m.
The change of venue from the Telfair-Peet Theater is part schedule conflict and part calculated move.
"We used to use the theatre, and with their schedule, it's too hectic to try and do Rocky there now," said Heather Rule, senior and student director. "You have to keep Rocky more tame in the theatre. It's not a show where you need to be tame, to put it lightly."
Performances of the 1970s B-movie musical are traditionally focused on audience interaction, with the actual film playing a supporting role to the actors and audience. A special initiation for Rocky virgins usually precedes the show.
Dressing up, singing along and throwing items at the stage are all encouraged. In fact, the $10 price of admission includes a throw bag filled with items that are significant to the movie's plot and musical numbers.
"People who don't know how to use throw bags will catch on really fast," Rule said.
The atmosphere of the shows and the camaraderie of the cast was enough to bring a former Auburn student and AU player back into the fold.
Mike Leigh, who left the university last year to act full time in New York City, will reprise the lead role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the Transylvanian transvestite and mad scientist.
"Last year, every night was different," Leigh said. "The audience is definitely a huge factor in the performance."
The Rocky Horror Picture Show began its uphill struggle into the cultural consciousness in 1975 as a box-office failure. Twentieth Century-Fox continued to search for an audience for the film until it became a fixture in the midnight movie circuits of the East and West Coasts.
Now the longest-running theatrical release, it was the first major studio film to be shown in the manner of the 1950s midnight movie matinees and word of mouth soon spread in a way that is no longer conceivable in the modern age of marketing.
"Attempting to make a cult film is kind of like trying to catch lightning in a bottle," said Deron Overpeck, assistant professor of film studies in Auburn's radio, television and film program. "The organic feel of a phenomenon like the Rocky Horror Picture Show just isn't possible anymore. There's just too much opportunity for it to feel like it's being marketed to us."
Overpeck said that even though it's a crappy film, the group experience is what has kept it around.
"The sense that you've discovered it with a lot of other people and are able to use it as a kind of common language and be in a group of people and experience that pleasure is something that a lot of people aren't going to have the opportunity for anymore," Overpeck said.
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