‘The really naughty bits’

DIWC’s popular production of The Rocky Horror Show is back with an adult cast

Jonathan Petrychyn
A&C Editor

The Rocky Horror Show
Royal Saskatchewan Museum
Oct. 27-31
7:30 p.m.
$20 at Conexus Arts Centre.

Rocky’s back on stage.

Do it With Class (DIWC) Young People’s Theatre is bringing back it hugely popular The Rocky Horror Show after a one-year hiatus.

This will be the fifth time the company has done the show, but this time they’re putting back all of the sexually explicit innuendoes.
“It’s not a children’s show,” said Hillstrom, despite the fact that in the past the play has been performed by its teenaged company. “There’s four-letter words and lots of sexual innuendo.”

Because of this, Hillstrom reached out to the adult community and cast volunteer adult performers.

“All the lead roles are being done by individuals who are adults,” Hillstrom said. “Before we couldn't do some of the really naughty bits. And now we can."

The Rocky Horror Show is famous – some might say infamous – not only for its midnight screenings and its crazy cult following, but for its overt sexuality and its unblinking willingness to present characters who operate within and around traditional gender and sexual identity categories.

The play follows the innocent newlywed couple Brad and Janet through a trip gone awry. Their car breaks down and they find themselves wandering towards the mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a sexually ambiguous transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania. Frank-N-Furter implores – though some might say forces – Brad and Janet to stay in his mansion as he constructs himself a perfect man: Rocky.

The couple is then put through a series of encounters that cause them to explore alternative sexualities and challenge the simple, traditional, innocent lifestyle they so loved.

But despite, or maybe because of this seemingly subversive content, Andorlie said the production is extremely popular in Regina. So popular, in fact, they’ve added an additional show.

“Our ticket sales [are] very high,” Hillstrom said. “And because of this, we’re adding on an Oct. 31 show.”

The high-ticket sales explain at least part of the reason why DIWC decided to resurrect the production, albeit in a slightly different format.

“There is new staging. Also it’s being done in a theatre we’ve never worked in before with this particular production, and that’s the Royal Saskatchewan Museum theatre,” Hillstrom said. “[It’s a] smaller space, more intimate.”

And this smaller space will bring the performance right onto the laps of the performers.

“Because of the interactive nature of the show, the audience will be close to all the performers,” Hillstrom said. “The performers will actually be moving in and out of the isles.”

“So much of it is visual as well as auditory,” Hillstrom said. “It’s like a big floor show, basically.”