Live Rocky Horror Picture Show at Purdue

WARNING: This post may be unsuitable for younger audiences. Read at your own risk.

This past Friday night, current Purdue Students put on The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Purdue Memorial Union. Now, I have heard about this show since the beginning of the year and was really excited to see it. I had plans with my friend wince we saw it advertised in August. Well when last week rolled around, he found out that he was going to Ball State this weekend and couldn’t make it to Rocky Horror.

So I frantically tried to find someone else to go with. I called up another one of my friends to see if he could go, but he had already had plans for that night and couldn’t cancel. Luckily, the next day my friend offered to go with me, even though she had never seen the show.

Now for those of you who have never seen or heard of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it goes a little something like this: Newly engaged couple, Brad and Janet, get stranded during a bad storm at the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his strange and bizarre entourage. This night is the unveiling of Frank’s latest creation, Rocky. Over the course of the night, Frank seduces Brad and Janet, Janet and Rocky become involved, Dr. Everett Scott arrives looking for his son Eddie (whom Frank killed earlier in the film), and it all goes to shit when the guests discover that Frank, Magenta, and Riff Raff are aliens from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania.

Anyways, so when you go to a live show of Rocky Horror, you are supposed to dress up, preferably as a character. I was very upset that I couldn’t dress up because I had a lot of errands to run before the show and I didn’t have time.

When we got to the Union, there were already some kids waiting in line for tickets. So we got in line right behind them and were within the first 15 people to get tickets. We finally got the tickets and then had to stand in another line in front of the doors to the ballroom where the show was. When we got in that line, we quickly got red V’s put on our forehead with red lipstick because we were “virgins.” This means that we have never seen a live Rocky Horror show before.

Once the doors opened, we quickly got our seats in the second row. We had to wait another hour until the opening ceremonies started. During this time the host, Roxy, who was a man dressed as a woman, would dance around to the music playing and throw condoms at people and just acted crazy. It was really fun, and I can’t even explain in words some of the crazy stuff he did.

When the opening ceremonies started, Roxy called up all the virgins to the stage. There were so many, probably around half of the audience, so it was crowded. So once all of us finally made it up to the stage, we played “games.” Now when I say games, I’m not talking about checkers or Life. We played Suck and Blow (with a condom), pop the condom balloon, suck the cream from the Twinkie, and a game that entailed people making the noises of animals…during sexual climax (which is in the picture to the right). I got to play Suck and Blow, which was really awkward since I didn’t know one of the people that I had to exchange the condom with.

Once all the games were over with, it was time for the show to begin. Now how most live Rocky Horror shows happen is they project the movie on a screen behind a stage. Then a cast acts out most of the scenes on stage.

I thought that the actors did a really good job at acting out their parts, with the exception of the girl who played the Narrator. I only say this because all of the other actors just mouthed the words along with the movie. The girl would actually speak her words and not even say the right ones. I only noticed this since I was sitting in the front couple rows, but it was really a nuisance and very distracting for me.

The best part of Rocky Horror for me was not the actually movie, or the acting out of the movie. It was the audience interaction part of it. When you bought the tickets, you could also get what was called a survival kit and in the kit was a bag of rice, newspaper, squirt gun, flashlight, rubber gloves, noisemaker, a bag of confetti, a roll of toilet paper, toast, party hat, bell, and playing cards. At certain parts of the movie you would use each item. There were also lines that you would shout that go along with lines that the actors said in the movie. Roxy knew all of the lines and random audience members knew some of them. An example would be every time they said Brad Majors or Janet Weiss you would yell “ASSHOLE!” or “SLUT!” respectively.

Overall, I had a really good time and would advise people to go to a live Rocky Horror show just to experience it for themselves. It takes you out of your comfort zone a bit, but in the end you get over it and just enjoy the show. I plan on seeing this show put on again in my future. If you go to Purdue or live in the Lafayette area of Indiana, Purdue tries to put on the show every year the Friday of Halloween. It isn’t very expensive so if you have around $10 and you want to have some fun, head over and watch the show.