Rocky Horror Picture Show
Alpha Psi Omega, the University of Indianapolis’ department of theatre honor society, hosted its third annual showing of the 1975 movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Member of Alpha Psi Omega put on “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Halloween night for UIndy students.
The showing included a shadow cast dancing to four numbers from the movie, casting their shadows on the screen to the songs “Sweet Transvestite,” “Dammit Janet,” “Time Warp” and “Toucha Toucha Touch Me.” Senior theatre major and president of Alpha Psi Omega Jason Gill said that they have changed a couple of things around from the last two years, but the biggest change is the cast.
“We changed a couple of numbers around, and we still had the goodie bags, but this year the cast has changed the most from when we started,” Gill said. “We had a lot of freshmen involved in it this year.”
The program involved a lot of audience participation. When the names “Janet” and “Brad” were said, the audience yelled out a common swear word. During certain scenes of the movie, the audience had props to go along with the movie, and they got up and danced to “Time Warp.” Students who were seeing the show for the first time received red V’s on their foreheads to represent being “virgins” to the experience.
Junior theatre major India Van Camp was the choreographer for the show. Gill said she had been the choreographer for the last three years.
“She [Van Camp] looked at what was in the film, and then we translated that into choreography that’s very similar to what’s in the film,” Gill said. “In the film, there are different shots and things happening, so you don’t see everything. So you have to translate that into live performance and show what is unseen.”
Freshman theatre major MacKinsey Taylor portrayed the character Magenta in the shadow cast. She said that she really enjoyed portraying that character.
“She’s very promiscuous, unlike most characters I normally play. So that was a lot of fun,” Taylor said.
Gill said that the production of “Rocky Horror” is fun for everyone and is easy to translate from film to live performance.
“The characters are larger than life. They’re so over-the-top crazy that we can take something that’s from film and put it on stage,” Gill said. “When you put those two together, the creation of that is so interesting to see. It’s just interesting to see the difference from live performance versus film happening at the same time.”
Taylor said that she performed in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for many reasons.
“I have seen ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ before,” Taylor said. “I thought it was a great way to get involved with Alpha Psi Omega, and I thought it would be a lot of fun because I’m really good friends with a lot of the people who are in it.”
Along with the show, Alpha Psi Omega also hosted a canned food drive, collecting 176 cans for the canned food drive and some monetary donations in lieu of a can donation. At the end of the night, the honor society announced that it had received more donations than it had in the past.
