Cinema News: How ‘Rocky Horror’ nurtured live theater

September 26, 2025 | View in browser

Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter in the cult-classic movie,

By Jessica Gelt

Staff Writer

When I was in high school in the 1990s, I worked the box office at Tucson's sole art house, the Loft Cinema. My favorite shift was Saturday night when a parade of true characters began lining up for the weekly midnight screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

The shadow cast arrived before the audience, a ragtag group of aspiring and established actors and fans, costumes in hand. They'd decamp in the bathrooms on either side of the lobby without regard for who was in the women's or men's, and proceed to cake on makeup and rib each other in delightfully uncouth terms.

The actors would wait by the theater doors to make their appointed entrances beneath the screen after the film began, and soon the theater was a sweaty mess of wild hair, dripping foundation, torn fishnet stockings, smeared lipstick, thrown popcorn, spilled soda and ribald song and dance.

There was no doubt in my 16-year-old mind that this was underground musical theater at its finest. At that time — when one of my best friends was struggling with how to come out as gay, fearing fierce social backlash — the topsy-turvy sexuality of the show, with its outlandish, cross-dressing lead, felt deliciously subversive. This was not "Grease" or "Godspell," it had more in common with the stage shows in "Cabaret."

Week after week, the same shadow cast arrived, treating the show as its professional run. If someone was out sick, an eager understudy would step in. This was one small art theater in Tucson. The "Rocky Horror" phenomenon, with its live shadow casts, has been ongoing around the world for decades now. That means thousands of shadow casts in thousands of cities beneath thousands of screens — each engaging in their own form of participatory community theater.

As the film honors its 50th anniversary this year with special engagements and talks across the country (see below for an Academy Museum screening), star Tim Curry is being celebrated for breaking boundaries with his onscreen portrayal of the eccentric, cross-dressing scientist Frank-N-Furter. But it's important to remember that the show began as a stage musical in London in 1973 — with Curry originating his role upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre. The musical then moved to L.A.'s Roxy Theatre for an electric yearlong run.

"Rocky Horror" is now known as as the longest continuous theatrical release in cinema history. But thanks to the talent and dedication of its legions of shadow casts — it just might be the longest continuous piece of live musical theater too.

I'm arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, inviting you to do the Time Warp. Here's this week's round-up of arts and culture news.

On our radar

Frankenstein
San Francisco Ballet brings Mary Shelley's 1818 gothic horror story to life in a three-act production of British choreographer Liam Scarlett's "Frankenstein." The ballet originally premiered at the Royal Ballet in 2016 and has gone on to become a modern classic with a score by Lowell Liebermann and stage design by critically acclaimed ballet and opera artist John MacFarlane.
– Mark Swed
7:30 p.m. Thursday and Oct. 3; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4;and 1 p.m. Oct. 5. Segerstrom Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

Jaja's African Hair Braiding
Playwright Jocelyn Bioh ("School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play") captures the camaraderie and competitiveness, solidarity and rivalry of workplace relations in this entertaining comedy about the African immigrant employees of a Harlem hair salon earning their daily bread as they work their fingers — and mouths! — to exhaustion. The play is wildly amusing, but Bioh isn't just kidding around. By familiarizing us with the workday rhythms of these flamboyant women, she makes us feel all the more acutely the threats that accompany their marginal status in a not-always-welcoming America. Whitney White, who directed the impeccably acted Broadway premiere, helms this much-praised co-production.
— Charles McNulty
Wednesday through Nov. 9. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org

Laufey
This young pop-jazz singer from Iceland shot a concert movie last year at the Hollywood Bowl; now she's doubling down with two adopted-hometown shows at Crypto.com Arena just as her album "A Matter of Time" is garnering substantial Grammy buzz.
— Mikael Wood
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Crypto.com Arena, 1111 S. Figueroa St., downtown L.A. cryptoarena.com

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

🎨 Acts of Surface
A three-artist show featuring works by Edith Baumann, Chip Barrett and Vincent Enrique Hernandez that explore the literal and emotional facets of surface as a repository for memory, transformation and abstraction.
Noon-5 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday through Friday or by appointment, through Oct. 23. 7811 Gallery, 7811 Melrose Ave. 7811gallery.com

📷 Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images
A trove of more than 15,000 35mm slides from the archive of the activist nun offers a peek into her artistic practice, her life as a teacher at Immaculate Heart College and the world she lived in between 1955 and 1968.
11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, through Jan. 24. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd. marcianoartfoundation.org

🎤 Tate McRae
The main pop girls have been expanding their portfolios of late. After showing off a limber pop sound on 2023's "Think Later" that made full use of her dance gifts, McRae proved her staying power with this year's "So Close to What," which topped the Billboard 200 by pulling from a rich seam of Y2K R&B and club jams. Yet she scored her first No. 1 single with the Morgan Wallen collab "What I Want." Whatever you think of Wallen — and McRae's young, queer fan base had thoughts — the song showed that McRae's Alberta roots could drop right into a pop-country setting. (August Brown)
7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Nov. 8. Kia Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com

🎭 Parallel Process
Writer-director David Kohner Zuckerman's drama stars Alan McRae and Tom Jenkins as brothers facing down a 50-year divide over the Vietnam War.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, through Nov. 2 (except Oct. 26). Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. parallelprocesstheplay.com

🎞️ The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Shiver with anticipation as star Tim Curry, producer Lou Adler and a shadow cast performance alongside a 4k screening of the movie mark 50 years of delectable decadence.
7:30 p.m. Friday. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

🎼 🎹 Daniil Trifonov
One of the most impressive pianists of his generation, the 34-year-old Daniil Trifonov, who starred in a Rachmaninoff week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in August, opens the Soka Performing Arts fall series at Soka University in Aliso Viejo with a recital program that features seldom heard solo piano works by three early 20th century Russian composers — Taneyev, Prokofiev and Myaskovsky — along with a Schumann sonata. In the meantime, Deutsche Grammophon recently released a stunning new Trifonov recording of overlooked, intimate solo piano works by Tchaikovsky. (Mark Swed)
8 p.m. Friday. Soka University Concert Hall, 1 University Drive, Aliso Viejo. soka.edu 7 p.m. Wednesday. UC Santa Barbara, Campbell Hall, campuscalendar.ucsb.edu

SATURDAY
🎭 Anthropology
Prolific and popular playwright Lauren Gunderson gravitates toward brainy subjects. Here, she delves into a fraught philosophical question: Can AI substitute for the human comfort we need, or are we only hastening the demise of our species by depending on digital simulations of people who actually care about us? John Perrin Flynn directs the North American premiere of a play by a dramatist whose work ("I and You," "The Book of Will") is as thought-provoking as it is emotionally resonant. (Charles McNulty)
Through Nov. 9, check specific dates. Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave. roguemachinetheatre.org

🎞️ Dazed and Confused
Vidiots' third annual celebration of Richard Linklater's 1993 coming-of-age classic includes screenings, a takeover of the Microcinema with games on freeplay, a unique commemorative T-shirt, giveaways, food and drinks, all-vinyl DJ sets from KCRW's Dan Wilcox and Wyldeflower and more. Close out the festivities with the period-appropriate 1976 Led Zeppelin concert film "The Song Remains the Same" at 9:30 p.m.
3 and 6:45 p.m. Saturday. Vidiots, Eagle Theatre, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org

🎭 Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol
The artistic collective's "Centroamérica" tells the story of a Nicaraguan woman on the run from Daniel Ortega's dictatorship, exploring history and the present to discover the region's diversity, conflict and resilience.
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

🎨 Vanessa Wallace-Gonzales
"Echoes," a solo exhibition by the multiracial Black and Mexican artist originally from Southern California, now based in New York, features cyanotypes, sculptural vessels and a multimedia installation in a hybrid home/gallery.
Noon-6 p.m. Saturday or by appointment, through Oct. 18. 839 Gallery, 839 N. Cherokee Ave. 839gallery.com

🎼 Quintessential Classical
The Colburn Orchestra opens its season with conductor Nicholas McGegan, clarinetist Minkyung Chu and masterworks from Bach, Haydn and Mozart.
7 p.m. Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu

TUESDAY

🎨 Realms of the Dharma Gallery Tour
LACMA conservator Soko Furuhata and curator Stephen Little discuss preservation and highlights from the exhibition of pan-Asian Buddhist art created across centuries.
7-8:30 p.m. LACMA, Resnick Pavilion, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org

📘 Oxy Live!
Occidental College's speaker series kicks off a new season with a new host, artist Alexandra Grant, and bestselling author and feminist icon Roxane Gay. Future guests include Taylor Mac and Robin Coste Lewis.
7 p.m. Occidental college Thorne Hall, 1600 Campus Road. oxy.edu

WEDNESDAY

🎭 Littleboy/Littleman
Nicaraguan brothers have different ideas about the American dream in the world premiere of playwright Rudi Goblen's drama, which mixes poetry, live music and ritual. Alex Hernandez and Marlon Alexander Vargas star for director Nancy Medina.
Through Nov. 2. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org

THURSDAY
🎼 The Rite of Spring with Dudamel
In an online note, the conductor writes, "if the LA Phil has a signature piece, it's The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky shocked the world when it was first performed more than a century ago, and even today, it still feels bold, modern, and full of energy — just like this orchestra." The evening also includes John Adams' "Frenzy" and Stravinsky's "Firebird."
8 p.m. Thursday and Oct. 4; 2 p.m. Oct. 5. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Times art critic Christopher Knight reviewed "Ken Gonzales-Day: History's 'Nevermade'," a poignant retrospective at USC's Fisher Museum of Art. The show features a mural-sized photograph titled, "The Wonder Gaze, St. James Park (Lynching of Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes, San Jose, 1933)," which shows the scene beneath a tree used to lynch two men accused (but not convicted) of kidnapping and murder. To create the image, Gonzales-Day photographed the original photo of the brutal scene and digitally removed the ropes and the victims, leaving only a bare tree and the many humans milling about beneath it. "What's left is a spectral scene, ghosted by the limitations of old black-and-white photographic technology and further heightened by the uneven glow generated by the camera's flashbulb. The mob has become the subject," Knight writes.

A trio of vibrant 99-seat theaters are in the spotlight of Times theater critic Charles McNulty's newest column, which features reviews of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana" at Boston Court; the West Coast premiere of Brian Quijada's play, "Fly Me to the Sun," at the Fountain Theatre; and Rogue Machine Theatre's world premiere production of "Adolescent Salvation" by Tim Venable. McNulty was particularly taken by the fine production of the not-often-revived "Night of the Iguana," writing, "Williams is the humane, humorously defiant playwright we need when authoritarianism is on the march."

Earlier this week, I got to spend the morning in the company of artist Jeff Koons as he arrived at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to install the celebratory first planting of a diminutive succulent in his monumental topiary sculpture, "Split-Rocker," which is set to anchor the east side of LACMA's new David Geffen Galleries when it opens in April of next year. LACMA CEO and Director Michael Govan was also on hand, and the two men walked into the not-yet-finished building to regard the sculpture from the floor-to-ceiling windows above. "It's an outdoor sculpture and indoor sculpture," Govan said.

Museums across the country are feeling the chill from the Trump administration's push against DEI, as well as its pressure campaign against the Smithsonian Institute for what it calls "divisive, race-centered ideology." This hasn't stopped the Getty from continuing to ramp up a growing slate of programs and grants aimed at preserving and strengthening Black arts and cultural heritage in Los Angeles and across the country. I spoke with a variety of curators, researchers and administrators at Getty about the institution's efforts.

A 12-foot-tall statue showing President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands while engaged in a gleeful dance was removed from the National Mall earlier this week — a day after it was first erected there. The statue, created by an anonymous group that received a permit to place it on the mall, was titled "Best Friends Forever" and featured a plaque that read, "We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his 'closest friend,' Jeffrey Epstein." The National Park Service removed the sculpture before it was scheduled to be taken down, saying it was "not compliant with the permit issued."

LA Opera is staging its annual free simulcast on Saturday — this time for "West Side Story." Per usual, one simulcast will take place on the Santa Monica Pier (bring a blanket, it will get chilly), but for the first time, a second simulcast will take place at Loma Alta Park in Altadena. The community event comes as fire recovery efforts continue, and excitement is building with a variety of local performers and vendors expected to take part in pre-show events, including "the Jets" from JPL.

George Soros' Open Society Foundations, which awards fellowships to artists and curators worldwide, is being targeted by President Trump's Justice Department as part of Trump's efforts to crack down on what he calls the "radical left."

— Jessica Gelt

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And last but not least

Take a break from doomscrolling to read this delightful story by Deborah Netburn about how a shoemaker in East L.A. ended up with shoe forms for some of Hollywood's biggest stars.