Good Evening Assholes and Sluts!
For those of you that are unaware of the reasoning behind my aggressive greeting, you must all be Rocky Horror virgins!
In 1975 the worst of all movies was created. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or RHPS, is a parody of science fiction and B-list movies. Leave it all up to the human population to make the movie better. With hundreds of popular callout lines, sprinkled water for rain, and games such as The Big Oh and the Bitch and the Butch, RHPS became a well known and well attended event that everyone should attend at least once.
Lips Down on Dixe, a shadow cast in Atlanta, Georgia, has just celebrated their tenth anniversary of performing RHPS. Led by their director Candace Weslosky-Miller, Lips Down on Dixie has earned their title as the best shadow cast of RHPS in the south east. I was privileged enough by being able to interview the assistant director Jevocas Green at a cast gathering one night. When I asked him how much the LDOD cast makes, I was stunned to learn that they didn’t make a cent. In fact, when LDOD began, the cast paid their way into the theater every week to perform.
So what is it that makes LDOD’s performance so amazing? Lizzy Fowler, an attendee of the show said, “I love how the cast is very good. It’s like perfectly in sync. That was the first time that I went that I really noticed. I was really impressed by how in sync you guys were.” LDOD has screen accurate costumes and props to make the show come to life.
If you have seen RHPS at least once before you are probably familiar with the Time Warp. The Time Warp is a song number in the movie where Magenta, the house maid, Riff, Magenta’s brother and handy man of the house, and Columbia, a groupie of the owner of the house Frank-N-Furter, dance when Janet Weiss and fiancé Brad Majors arrive at the home. When this scene of the movie plays everyone in the theater watching stands up and dances along with the screen. I asked Katie Brooks, a virgin of the RHPS, if she stood up and danced during the Time Warp and she responded with, “Yes I did. Oh, I danced!”
So let’s go over the basics. You have come to the show, been called an asshole or a slut, done the time warp, and listened to all the AP, or audience participation, lines and have gotten in your car to drive home. What do you do before coming back next time? According to Madeline Bryant who is also a virgin, “I wanna come back, but I wanna read the script.” Brooks added, “I saw it once before and I thought it was a pretty crazy movie and I heard about all the added lines but I didn’t know any of them.”
I asked all three girls if they would say that everyone should see RHPS at least once and if they had anything else to add and they all said, “Yeah! Definitely! We will be coming back! We will be those people that come like sixteen times and know all the lines!”
To conclude my favorite article and interview, please come out to see Lips Down on Dixie perform The Rocky Horror Picture Show any Friday night at midnight at the historic Plaza Theatre. I guarantee it will, “thrill you, chill you, and fulfill you.”
A special thank you to Jevocas Green, Candace Weslosky-Miller, Lizzy Fowler, Katie Brooks, and Madeline Bryant for allowing me to interview them.
See you Friday!
