Rocky Horror Shadow Cast Returns to Industry City

The cast of Brooklyn’s most devoted midnight-movie tradition has a new home for the season. A “Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadow cast screening and celebration returned to bkONE Productions at Industry City for one night only on Oct. 24, according to the Brooklyn Paper, with actors performing alongside the film and audience members invited to bring their props and their favorite shout-backs.

Erech Holder-Hetmeyer plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter, with Josh Piper as Brad and Annika Solomone as Janet. Ed Serenson takes on Riff-Raff and Chris Sorrentino plays Eddie; Sorrentino also hand-drew the poster for the event. It is the second time bkONE has hosted the shadow cast ritual, which is almost as old as the film itself.

The tradition has deep New York roots. “Rocky Horror” debuted in 1975 and was near-universally panned by critics, but it found a second life at midnight screenings at the Waverly Theater in Manhattan. There, regulars began shouting back at the screen, building a second script of their own: “A–hole” when Brad appears, or “Say it!” as Tim Curry’s Frank-N-Furter stretches out the word “Antici…pation” in “Sweet Transvestite.” Costumes followed, and finally the shadow cast. The Brooklyn Paper reports that 51 years later, the film is the longest-running theatrical release in history.

Director and choreographer Geoffrey Doig-Marx, who moved to New York City from Guilderland, New York, says the film shaped him. “When I was a kid … you realize that you’re different,” he told the Brooklyn Paper. At his first screening, he recalled, he realized that “everybody in this room is different, like me.” He later made the trip to Manhattan’s 8th Street Playhouse, which he calls the “holy, holy ground of ‘Rocky Horror.'” The film became especially beloved in the queer community, thanks in part to the gender-bending Frank-N-Furter, and screenings were a “very queer scene,” journalist June Thomas has written.

Doig-Marx still keeps a signed “Rocky Horror” poster in his studio, and he told the Brooklyn Paper he tells his students at Northeastern University that the film will change their lives. Of this year’s cast, he said Holder-Hetmeyer’s Frank-N-Furter “is going to blow you away,” and that Serenson “knows more callbacks than I do, and he still makes me laugh.” Performers move through the audience throughout the night. Of last year’s debut, he said: “It was just like a party the entire time.”

The evening, held in Courtyard 1/2 at Industry City, officially kicked off at 7 p.m. with “Rocky Horror” trivia, a ceremony for “virgins” who have never seen the film, and a Frank-N-Furter lookalike contest. Entering the contests costs $5; the event itself is free. The program also included a special tribute to Curry, who died earlier this year. “Tim Curry is a national treasure,” Doig-Marx told the Brooklyn Paper.

Costumes were “preferred,” and attendees could bring their own props or buy a prop bag for $10. The free screening was to be followed by a ticketed, $15 “Time Warp After Dark DJ Party” featuring disco, drinking and dancing.