Monday, January 24, 2005
Hey Frank! Sing to the camera!
When I was a late-teen I spent a two-plus year timespan going to the Heights Art Theater on Coventry Road every Friday and Saturday night at midnight in order to watch and [perform in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I played Riff-Raff, which got me the nickname Tim-Raff, which I gladly acknowledged and even encouraged. -- my current online handle comes from a Polish Immigrant mispronouncing the nick, which I thought was funny, and so I kept it. More people at college knew me as "Riff" than as Tim, and it was a fun bit of notoriety. My picture was printed in the local weekly suburban paper, standing resplendently in my black and gold vinyl spacesuit and fishnet stockings, with a banana on my head and a bizarre three-pronged "laser capable of emitting a beam of pure anti-matter". Said my best frind's mom, "Damn, Tim, you've got nice legs!"
I ended up seeing Rocky 189 times. I last saw it 20 years ago on the last night that the Heights Art was open. They closed the next day, and with it went my career as a space pirate/butler who has regular elbow sex with his sister/coworker. I can still recite all the lines. I know the dialogue frontwards and backwards.
My friend Ennie is currently playing Magenta at the Cedar Lee Theater, where they've been showing Rocky once a month for the last fifteen or so years. I never went to see it there, mostly out of respect for the guy who now plays RiffRaff, but I know most of the cast and regular attendees, and have even met up with them post-show for parties.
Ennie will be retiring next month from her role. She recently turned 30, and acknowledges that "it's time to grow up."
I have een asked to come to her final curtain, to act as an extra in the cast (as one of the Transylvanians doing the Time Warp) and to present her with a bouquet at the end of the show.
So it looks like, unlike Frank N. Furter, who despite singing about Going Home and never actually getting to, I'll be Coming Home to Rocky one last time. Should be fun.
Posted by Anonymous at 1/24/2005 01:04:00 PM ::

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