Audience Got Rowdy at ICC’s Spring Musical The Rocky Horror Show
Earlier this month, the cast of an ICC musical performed to an audience that called them names, threw toilet paper on stage, and shot water guns at them — and it was all encouraged by the cast.
This was ICC’s Theater Department’s second spring play, an adult-themed interactive musical called The Rocky Horror Show. It is based on the cult classic 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The Rocky Horror Show is about “the story of a newly engaged couple who get caught in a storm and seek refuge at the home of mad transvestite scientist, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who unveils his new creation, Rocky, a sort of Frankenstein-style monster”, according to the ICC events website.
The show includes a cast of 14 people. However, the audience was encouraged to interact with the play through singing, dancing, and shouting.
Audience members were also encouraged to purchase an optional five-dollar prop bag. Some highlights of the bag were a roll of toilet paper to throw at the stage, a mini water gun, and a party horn.
They were given a script to use their items at certain points in the play. For example, when the newly wedded couple walked out of their gasless car into a storm, the audience used the water gun to imitate the rain.
While they did have a bag check, someone did manage to sneak in toast and a handful of rice, which they threw on stage. It was quite annoying to clean up, according to Kloey Burgess, who played one of the phantoms.
Audience members were given a script to do callouts in response to certain lines. Sometimes they were jokingly mean, such as yelling “This man has no neck!” whenever the narrator arrived on stage.
The audience was allowed to come up with their own quips and callouts, which led to some confusion.
“The most memorable interaction moment was probably when one of the callback lines was “bad actors” but the cast didn’t know it was one,” says Teagan Ealey, who played the usherette. “We genuinely thought for a day that those people thought we were bad performers. But we later found out that it was in the participation script. So no hard feelings and lots of laughs!”
While Ealey was in her usherette role, she performed two solos: “Science Fiction/Double Feature” at the beginning of the show, and the same song’s reprise at the end.
There were two matinees, where there were no prop bags or callouts and the only way to interact with the play was to sing-along.
“The matinees were so different from the interactive shows,” says Ealey. “It almost became weird to just have a normal audience watching and not have anyone throwing toilet paper at you.”
There was a pre-show costume contest at each performance, with wacky costumes. Winners got a bag full of lip-themed memorabilia.
It seems that the cast and audience were both quite satisfied with the show.
“The turnout was pretty decent. It seemed evenly spread throughout the shows with slightly more at the interactive performances,” says Ealey.
Ealey also loved how the show’s audience interaction turned out. “I absolutely loved how engaged the audience was with the show. It is such a special interaction I’ve only ever seen with this musical. I’m so grateful that I was able to sing and dance with my amazing castmates!”
“I loved the show! Everyone was perfectly cast! You could truly see how much fun everyone was having!” says student Grace Parker, who attended the show as an audience member.