Are you a virgin … of the movie “Rocky Horror Picture Show”?
That’s what fans of the campy cult classic call first-timers catching the freaky flick during the now-iconic midnight showings. If so, it might be difficult to grasp the whole scene that revolves around the 1975 musical-comedy-horror film (with a little sexual fluidity thrown in for good measure).
Fans perform a “shadow” version of scenes live in the movie theater as these play on the screen, mimicking everything from costumes and makeup to choreography and vocals. Audience participation includes well-timed rejoinders or “callbacks” to movie dialogue and, at rowdier cinemas, the crowds have taken to squirting water guns, throwing rice, shining flashlights and generally adding an action accent to every other line uttered by the actors in the film.
If you are among the uninitiated, you can shed that innocence on Saturday, Oct. 1, when “The Rocky Horror Picture Show 47th Anniversary Spectacular Tour featuring Barry Bostwick” comes to the Pompano Beach Cultural Center.
“I’m really sort of doing it because the shadow casts around the country have had a very hard two years with COVID, and a lot of them have lost their home theaters,” Bostwick told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I want them all to, as best as they can, stay together and keep the ‘Rocky Horror’ world of inclusion and self-discovery alive. And that’s really why I’m doing it.”
Bostwick, who lives in central Florida with wife and actor Sherri Jensen Bostwick, is probably best known to more recent generations for his television roles in “The Potwins” and “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.” His other feature film roles include “Incredibles 2,” “Hannah Montana: The Movie” and “Grand-Daddy Day Care.”
In “Rocky Horror,” the actor played Brad Majors opposite Susan Sarandon as Janet Weiss. The movie opens with these two characters, newly engaged, getting a flat tire on a remote road on a rainy night. Hoping to use a phone, the couple make their way to an isolated castle where they meet a butler Riff Raff (Richard O’Brien), maid Magenta (Patricia Quinn), groupie Columbia (Nell Campbell) and a host of eccentrics attending the Annual Transylvanian Convention.
Now here’s where it gets a little weird. The “master’ of the house is Dr. Frank N. Furter (played by Tim Curry), a mad scientist from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania, who creates a human beefcake plaything named Rocky (Peter Hinwood) in his laboratory — that is, after a somewhat unsuccessful attempt with unfortunate delivery boy Eddie (Meat Loaf). From there, the plot spirals out of control … and into sci-fi territory as it parodies a host of B-movies from the 1930s through ’60s.
In addition to the screening of the original unedited movie featuring the live professional shadow cast — called “Creatures of the Night” — there will be a costume contest and a display of memorabilia. VIP tickets include an opportunity to have a meet-and-greet session with Bostwick.
“We are thrilled to kick off the Halloween season with this cult classic,” said Ty Tabing, Pompano Beach’s cultural affairs director. “Get your costumes and we will have your prop bags ready.”
Prop bags will be sold onsite for $5. You are not allowed to bring your own props.
The event begins at 8 p.m. at the Pompano Beach Cultural Center, 50 W Atlantic Blvd.
Tickets are $50 for general admission.
VIP tickets are $100. The meet-and-greet session starts at 7 p.m. You may have a photo taken with Bostwick with your own camera and bring a personal item for the actor to sign. There will also be photos of Bostwick you may have signed.
For tickets or more information, visit PompanoBeachArts.org.
Below, learn more about the “Rocky Horror” party and kickoff to the Halloween season in excerpts from a Q&A with Bostwick.
Q: What surprised you most about doing this event previously?
A: What surprises me most is that the audiences for these shadow cast performances keep getting younger and younger. I did a convention about three months ago in Raleigh, and there were 2,000 kids in the audience and, I swear, 10 of them were over the age of 24. It was like a whole new generation discovering and enjoying this thing. And … the new generation, which I would probably say is the third generation of “Rocky Horror,” is just as enthusiastic as the first generation was. That’s so unusual because they weren’t the discoverers, they weren’t the Columbuses of this, they are sort of hanging on the sidelines of the original people who fell in love with it, but they found their own way of doing it. They have their own callbacks, and they have their own shadow cast, enthusiasm and talent.
Q: When were you first aware that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was becoming a phenomenon? What do you remember of your thoughts and feelings at that time?
A: I think I became aware of it when the 8th Street Playhouse in New York started really showing it on Fridays and Saturday nights, and they slowly evolved it into a theatrical event. I was unaware of the impact of the movie until a few years after it was released and then reinvigorated in the midnight circuit. I didn’t even go to an opening or anything. It opened and I was on to other things. But when it sort of became the hit thing to do in New York, and it went along with the exploration and self-discovery, I think that’s when I really started embracing the whole culture of “Rocky Horror.”
Q: What are some of the most surprising things that “Rocky Horror” fans have asked you, gifted to you, wanted you to autograph, shared with you or done to you?
A: It always gets back to “Will you sign my thigh?” And then they come back four hours later having my signature tattooed on their thigh. That’s always the thing that shocks me most. The real collectors or the real autograph people, when they bring me an original poster from the first edition, I think to myself: My God, I had a whole bunch of these way back when, and I probably just gave them away. And now they’re $300 or $400 each, if you’re lucky to find one in good shape. So I’m always very careful when I autograph something that is original to the original show, whether it’s an album or it’s a poster or it’s a picture or maybe a lobby card. I know how much these things mean to the people who ask me to sign them.
Q: Are there any TV or movie credits coming up that your fans should keep an eye out for?
A: There’s a movie they’re trying to get out called “Daruma.” They’re trying to get that into Sundance this year. There’s a movie called “Lady Parts” that they’re trying to finish up. And around Christmastime, I always have a number of Christmas movies that are re-run, either on Hallmark or Lifetime or Netflix, where I give the world a Santa Claus. I haven’t given the world a Santa Claus this year, but people see these things around Christmastime and they go, “Oh, I just saw your movie,” and I say, “Yeah, thank you, I made it three years ago.” They say, “What’s coming up?” And I always say, “Check my IMDb page, I don’t remember.” I don’t remember what I’ve done or where I did it — not that I don’t respect it or that I don’t like it, it’s just that I’m always on to the next thing. That’s probably why I didn’t even know when “Rocky Horror” was originally released. It took me years to figure out where it was and how it got there.
Q: Have you been to Broward County before?
A: I live in Mount Dora, which is a city in mid-state [Florida]. My wife was raised in Fort Lauderdale, and then she moved with her family to Mount Dora when she was in her late teens. We moved here about 3 1/2 years ago to be with her mother in Mount Dora, and we fell in love with it again. So we moved everything out of sunny California before it burnt up and before it shook to death and before you spend your whole life in your car trying to get somewhere. I have fallen in love with mid-state Florida.”
