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A Friday night San Pedro Playhouse production celebrates a movie that’s now a half-century old. On release, it was largely ignored by audiences until a kind of subculture arose, attending midnight showings of the delightfully kitschy film.
The playhouse’s Sami Serrano Bassig explains.
“It is the 50th anniversary of Rocky Horror Picture Show, the movie. So we're celebrating that by showing the movie, and we're also going to be having a small shadow cast performing the movie in front of the movie screen playing,” Bassig said.
“And the thing that's a little bit different about our production is we're going to be actually singing live over the movie itself.”
The movie is an unusual one, with shades of Frankenstein echoing throughout, but The Rocky Horror Picture Show never gets around to scaring viewers because it keeps them laughing for most of the movie’s 100 minutes.
It is a movie that first introduced American audiences to British actor Tim Curry and American actress Susan Sarandon. They both went on to big careers in the movies. Barry Bostwick plays Sarandon’s boyfriend.
The two characters begin the film by driving along until they are stopped by a flat tire and seek help at Frank-n-Furter’s castle-like house.
At San Pedro Playhouse, Cody Garcia is playing Curry’s lead role as Dr. Frank-n-Furter, around which the storyline revolves.
Garcia is with the national Broadway tour of The Grinch that Stole Christmas—playing the title character.
Bassig noted it's been 50 years since this movie came out, and over time it's left an indelible mark.
“So we're celebrating that by showing the movie. And we're also going to be having a small shadow cast performing the movie in front of the movie screen playing,” she said.
That shadow cast will be mimicking the movie, and they'll be singing along with the movie. Besides what’s happening on the stage, the Playhouse is making a real event out of it, too.
“We actually have a Halloween costume contest that's going to take place for both of those performances. We're going to have food trucks outside as well,” Bassig said.
San Antonians interested in going should know that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is a one-night run only, with an early and a late show on Halloween.
