.png)
The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien. A humorous tribute to various B movies associated with the science fiction and horror genres from the 1930s to the early 1960s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, Rocky, a sort of Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man.
The show was produced and directed by Jim Sharman. The original London production of the musical was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs) on 19 June 1973 (after two previews on 16 and 18 June 1973). It later moved to several other locations in London and closed on 13 September 1980. The show ran for a total of 2,960 performances in London and won the 1973 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical. Songs in the musical include Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite (co-written by O'Brien and Richard Hartley), while the costumes were designed by Sue Blane.
Its 1974 debut in the US in Los Angeles had a successful nine-month run, but its 1975 Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre lasted only three previews and forty-five showings, despite earning one Tony nomination and three Drama Desk nominations. Various international productions have since spanned across six continents as well as West End and Broadway revivals and eight UK tours.
In 1991, it was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. Actor Tim Curry, who originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, became particularly associated with the musical.
The musical was adapted into the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring O'Brien as Riff Raff, with Curry also reprising his role; the film has the longest-running release in film history.
In 2016, it was adapted into the television film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again. The musical was ranked eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals", and it was one of eight British musicals featured on a commemorative stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2011.
Beyond its cult status, The Rocky Horror Show is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements that followed on from the 1960s. It was one of the first popular musicals to depict fluid sexuality during a time of division between generations and a lack of sexual difference acceptance. Like the film adaptation, the musical is noted for a long-running tradition of audience participation through call-back lines and attending dressed up as characters from the show.
On the 50th anniversary of the musical in 2023, BBC News states that since debuting in London in 1973 the production has been performed in 20 different languages and been seen by 30 million people globally.
Between acting jobs in the early 1970s, Richard O'Brien, wrote The Rocky Horror Show to keep himself busy on winter evenings. Since his youth, he had developed a passion for science fiction and B horror movies; he wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humour of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle films, and fifties rock and roll into The Rocky Horror Show.
The impact at the Royal Court Upstairs allowed the production be transferred to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema nearby on Kings Road from 14 August 1973 to 20 October 1973.
Rocky Horror found a quasi-permanent home at the 500-seat King's Road Theatre -another cinema house, even further down Kings Road- from 3 November 1973. The show received praise from London theatre critics and won the 1973 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. When Richard O'Brien played Riff Raff in the original Broadway production of Rocky Horror in 1975, Robert Longden took over the role in London.
The show's run at the King's Road Theatre ended on 31 March 1979; it then transferred to the Comedy Theatre (now the Harold Pinter Theatre) in the West End to begin performances on 6 April 1979. At the new venue, Rocky Horror required some restaging, for the Comedy was the first theatre at which the musical had played that possessed a traditional proscenium arch stage. For the first time, the musical was also broken into two acts with an interval. It finished its run there on 13 September 1980 in what was its 2,960th performance in London.
In 1977, a Catalan-language version of the musical directed by Ventura Pons and produced by Jordi Morell, with the slogan L'espectacle més desmadrat del segle (The most riotous show of the century), premiered on 4 March 1977 at Teatre Romea in Barcelona.
More information: Medium
No comments:
Post a Comment