What is up? All you unconventional conventions? Welcome back to a Rocky talkie. A Rocky horror podcast where we talk about anything and everything. Rocky Horror. Why the fuck am I talking like this? I'm John. I'm and I'm Aaron. Nicky Aaron. I missed both of you so very much. How was your week? My week was pretty dope. I got a vaccine appointment. I'm getting vaccinated on Wednesday and I'm so fucking excited because I've just been waiting for this. I've wanted it since it was first released and I didn't think the universe was going to let it happen and then it happened because I have the coolest boyfriend's mom ever. It really sounds like you're talking about a Playstation five. Yeah. Or a limited edition box set or something. Yeah, I'm getting the limited edition COVID vaccine. Um Shout out to Josh's mom for hooking me up. I'm so happy. I'm so excited. Get your fucking vaccines. Anyway, how are you Aaron? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I just got back actually earlier today from getting my first dose of the vaccine. I know I know I was super pumped. There was uh a couple of slots that opened up, uh about 45 minutes actually down in Red Bank, right by where your F N S Rocky theater is? Yeah. Yeah. So did that went down there, came back up. So, uh let's hope I make it through this uh whole recording without, uh, you know, needing to over hydrate growing a third arm. But I'm doing good. I'm doing good, John. What have you been up to? Well, guess what? I got a limited edition box set up. Yeah, I got the vaccine once. See, you can't just copy us like we already. Ok. Go ahead. All right. Well, if we're being specific, I was the first one out of the three of us to get the vaccine. So y'all copied me, John does have a point. My arm is fully usable right now. Aaron in about three hours. You're gonna be like where did my left arm go? And it's gonna be fantastic. And Nicky, you'll say the same thing on Wednesday. I got my vaccine. All three of us are vaccinated. So if you're listening to this and you haven't gotten vaccinated, suck my dick and then go get a vaccination. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go get a vaccination and then come and suck his dick. You don't want to get COVID. Yeah. You have to wait a month though before any dick sucking. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So go get your vaccine and then wait a month and then go get the second dose and then wait like that four week period. I for like confirmed immunity and then hit up John and he'll invite you into his bubble and then you guys can talk without masks on and then eventually over time you can suck his dick. And I only let people suck my dick if they're hot and everybody with the vaccine is hot. I don't make the rules what he said. And with that, let's get started with our first segment which is as you all know, global news. Hold on. I don't, I don't see hot here on the side effects list. I was not given proper medical information. Well, see Aaron, if you're already hot and then you get the vaccine, it just cancels out. Like first off on global news, we'd like to wish the happiest of birthdays to our favorite alien transvestite mad scientist Tim Curry who is celebrating his 75th birthday today. April 19th. Yay. Oh yay. Happy birthday. Oh my God. Tim has always been a pretty private guy who has never been into airing his private life on social media. So we've got no word on how he'll be celebrating, but we hope that wherever he is he's up to something fun. Happy birthday, Tim. We here at Rocky Talkie. Hope you're having a great day full of awesome presents, good food and plenty of time with your loved ones. Cheers to 75 years and hopefully a lot more to come. Hey, that rhyme. Look at you. So a fun fact about Tim Curry. Did you guys know that he played the voice in 1994 of the robot that introduces you to Disney's now defunct Extra Terrestrial Alien Encounter Ride. What? All right. Moving on. So, on a different note though, we've got some exciting announcements for the 2021 UK tour. Almost every single role of the upcoming stage show tour has been announced. Unfortunately, I am none of them. Damn it. We've recently told you all about Oreo Duba previously known for being the winner of a competition called Strictly Come Dancing. Now, best known to us at least for being brand majors. But let's go through who else we've got, we've got uh Stephen Webb who will be starring as Dr Franken Fter, which seems like a big step for this actor who is primarily taking supporting roles up until now, including most recently Maroni and Elder mckinley in the book of Mormon, right? And that was in 2016 at the Prince of Wales Theater. So the West end version of it and Buttons Cinderella at London's Theater, the role of Janet will be played by Haley Flaherty who played Janet back in 2015 during the Rocky Horror Show Live, as well as also having performed the character during the show's run on the west end and touring with the production throughout the UK, New Zealand and Singapore. She's adorable. That's gonna be cool. Uh So Riff Raff though will be played by none other than Kristen Lesco who has to date played Riff Raff in over 1800 performances of the Rocky Horror Show. He holds the world record for performing in the show more than anyone in its 46 year history. He's worked on the show in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Italy, Singapore, South Korea and of course, the United Kingdom. I love him so much. Yeah, he's absolutely fucking fantastic. Lauren Ingram will be playing Columbia and in addition to playing Janet in the 2016 UK tour has also worked as Eliza in a Naples production of My Fair Lady and Marjorie May in a production of Gypsy at London's Savoy Theater. Another newcomer to the tour will be Callum Evans. Do you? Oh, sorry. He's played Eugene in a UK and international tour of Greece performing the role of Troppo in a UK tour production of Salad Days and is an accomplished acrobatic gymnast, winning the Welsh Championship and coming in second place in the British acrobatic Gymnastics Championships. That's exactly what you want in Iraqi. Yeah. If you want to drop to Janet, uh so Joe Allen will be portraying Eddie and Doctor Scott. Joe performed in Regent Park's Open Air Theater production of Little Shop of Horrors. One of my favorite shows as well as featuring several times in Mama Mia. Two. Here we go again, Joe, who? Joe Allen? Joe Mama, who was he in? Mama? Mia? I don't know, I don't like Mama Mia. My doesn't like you last but certainly not least the role of the narrator will be played by Philip Franks. OK, Franks. Uh He played the role back in the 2019 and 2012 UK tours outside of his rocky career. Philip is an incredibly prolific actor who has appeared in numerous television film stage and even radio productions throughout the world, the whole world everywhere on his back. But wait is that all, aren't we missing someone? No, nobody important is missing from that list. Ok. I guess let's move on to our next segment. Every single character has been casted at least everyone who has lines. So Magenta. Yeah. No, we don't have a Magenta cast yet. I guess they're still working on it. We'll keep you guys updated when they finally cast a role. I know you're all dying to find out so big. Congrats to the brand new UK touring cast. You guys all sound totally perfect for your roles and we can't wait to watch many, many clips of your performances on youtube. If you'd like to check out more about the cast or the tour so far, you can visit Rocky Horror dot co dot UK, which we also have linked for you in our show notes. So if you live in the northeast and you're looking for a Rocky horror themed outing, well, have I got some news for you. Schafer Farms in Flemington, New Jersey will be hosting a Rocky Horror Haunted Weekend on Friday, May 14th and Saturday May 15th for my birthday. I live in New Jersey. So according to their event description, it's not for John's birthday, but doors and dinner will begin at seven PM, followed by live preshow music by the Wag band and some very special and very unnamed guests. Finally, the venue will show a screening of the Rocky horror picture Show film. Hm. I wonder what else it would be, uh, hosting a costume contest and throwing an after party. The dinner is a farm to fork event where you can choose themed meals such as Dr Franken Fur's hot dog and Eddie's meat loaf. I don't know, I would eat Eddie's meat loaf any time if you know what I mean? Well, Aaron, you heard her, uh I'm gonna take that as a hard maybe, speaking of which the event is B Y O B and tickets are only $10 although tickets to the after party are sold separately. And if you needed more reason to go to this event, it's for a good cause. A portion of the proceeds raised will benefit casting for Recovery, which is a five oh one C three nonprofit organization that provides healing outdoor retreats for women with breast cancer at no cost to the participants if you're interested in checking out the event and maybe buying some tickets. We've linked them to you in our show notes and if you need less of a reason to go to this event, can I just take like a minute to be salty about this? Nikki has an opinion. Now, how I know, I don't read that, but that's just killing me. Is this a new, a new segment? Nicky having an opinion? I, I like this idea a little bit. I like it because it's in New Jersey and it's kind of close to home. It's like an hour and a half away from me. But I have a few feelings. First of all, I heard through the grapevine that they're not doing a P at this event which coupled with the fact that it's B Y O B, I find that kind of interesting because if you're letting people drink, you're going to have at least one drunk guy that's yelling asshole all night. Yeah. And also, I don't know why are we having a haunted weekend in the middle of May? Do they not know how time works for my birthday? It is the summer solstice. Maybe it's a time warp, maybe. I don't know. I think I always need to be bitter. I'm very finicky with New Jersey Rocky Horror, but this venue makes me a little upset. I'm gonna be honest, but I have, I have high hopes that it'll be a good birthday party for John that he won't be attending. We should also note that at the moment, there's no word on how this event will be practicing social distancing, although it's a farm. So maybe all the festivities will be held outside. I can just picture it now laying outside at an old farm out in New Jersey in the springtime under the stars with a whole bottle of alert that you brought from home all while dressed in full Columbia tailcoat and Stier. So you can be ready for the costume contest that takes place after the movie, Aaron, you should know not to wear your Columbia tail coat outside. What if there's a fluke rainstorm and you rust, I guess I'll have to use one of the other three Columbia tail coats that are in my basement. Also. Also, if we're having opinions here, let's talk about the fact that the costume contest is after the movie by floor Show. Everybody is done with this film and they want to go home and this movie doesn't have a live cast. I'm just saying I wouldn't want to hang out till the end of the movie and then be like, yes, I was dressed as Janet 2.5 hours ago, but I wiped off my eyeliner from sitting in my car for too long. Like, I'm so mad. Just kidding. I'm so nice. Hey, bring your own booze. And then afterwards you can have a party where you're still drinking your own booze. All right. Well, when you'll put it like that. It makes me kind of want to move on to our next segment which is community news, boo boo boo boo. First up in community news, we've got another con announcement for you. So te Staycation Con which is scheduled for July 16th through July 18th has just opened up their casting applications for the Rocky and Shocky All Star virtual shows. Hell yeah. The Google audition forums, which we've linked in our show notes are available on the cons Facebook group. Once in, you can fill out info about your casting preferences, cast affiliation, tech setup and rehearsal availability. And of course, you'll have the option to submit an audition video. I don't know about you guys, but watching all the audition videos grow up are one of my favorite parts about con every year. You always get a few that are really funny and really clever and for the rest, I mean, who doesn't love jamming out to performance clips underscored by the punk rock music soundtrack? Wait, are you guys submitting for either show? I think I might, I feel like if I, if I do, I'll probably put him for some like out of pocket character that I don't usually perform as so like no riff or no uh or no Frank or Brad. I probably put him for like Janet or Columbia or some random shit like that. Oh If Meg and I are going to do anything, we are firmly looking at Ralph and Betty again because uh that is the absolute maximum amount of effort I'm willing to put into anything that's remotely to do with the con. Am I allowed to submit or is there like a thing? It's called All Star? I'm not an All Star. You fucking think I am. I don't know. Yes. No, actually yes, I do. John. The, the only requirement there is that you've listened to smash mouth at least once. I agree though. Well, the deadline for applications is May 15th. So if any of our listeners are gonna throw their hats in the ring, you've got a little under a month to get your video put together. We cannot wait to see your audition videos all over social media. Well, guys, oh, we did it. That's right. We singlehandedly did it. We sent reefer madness vibes out into the universe and the universe answered and by the universe, we totally mean J C C P. So we are beyond excited to announce that our friends out in Pittsburgh will be REBROADCASTING reefer madness. The virtual music hall here. The shocking sordid facts. Tell your Children all about the dangers of that violent narcotic, that unspeakable scourge, the drug menace known as marijuana. Fortunately, the Junior Chamber of Commerce players are here to educate you all about it. This Friday, April 23rd at nine PM Eastern. Take a huge bong rip and tune into the recording of J C C P's 2019 shadow cast performance. Really love Reefer Madness. And we are super looking forward to this one. I absolutely loved getting to watch this performance last year and I cannot wait to see it again this weekend. Honestly, I would be so fucking happy if we could turn Reefer Madness into a weekly thing. The same way Rocky is now, it's so good. All of the music is such a bop and I'm madly in love with Sally's hot ass. I just want to make it happen. I just want to make it happen. I want Sally, I want Dara Aaron. You're supposed to cut me off. No, Nicky. You see, we are all in love with Sally's hot ass. Ah uh Seriously though, this one doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves. I don't think I've ever seen it performed at a con probably not in the last decade. At least. I don't know. I know that I performed it once at a convention, but it wasn't a Rocky convention. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I absolutely love Reefer Madness. Well, maybe those are the vibes that we need to put out into the universe next. Like, hold on. It sure would be nice if we could do Reefer Madness at R K 04. Roy doesn't J C C P put it on like all the time. Yeah, but that's because they're like baller road trip, road, road trip. Did someone say road trip, road trip? Road trip, trip trip. Shut up, Nicky. Ok. Maybe when we're all done being vaccinated against the plague. Which, which I think we almost all are for now. We can't wait to tune in with all of you on Friday at nine PM. It's gonna be a hell of fun show and we will see you all there. Speaking of virtual shows next up, we've got an exciting announcement from R H P S Buffalo. Do you Miss Rocky Horror? Have you just found out that the Francis Bacon Experiment exists in the last six months? They certainly know how to play to their audience. I definitely didn't know anything about this cast before they blew the fuck up on social media. Well, and now is your chance to join in on the fun near and far? The Francis Bacon Experiment will be hosting a summer kickoff show on R H P S live dot com. Enjoy throwing virtual confetti toast and cards while typing your favorite callbacks. They will be streaming their 2021 dark alley drive in performance. The night was October 16th, the temperature 40 F and the cast was on fire. That doesn't sound very safe. Honestly. Have you seen their cast though? They're all on fire because they're smoking hot lit. A F Yes. No, this is a totally free performance. But if you're feeling frisky, you can of course tip the cast, just the tip to help them continue putting on shows So come up to the lab and see what's on the slab. We see you shiver with anti you gonna say it. No, it says the end of the word in the event description. So fuck you guys. That's fair. The performance will take place on May 21st at nine PM Eastern for my birthday on R H P S live dot com. I feel like it really has been within the last year or so. The Buffalo blew up on social media and it's been so much fun to watch the way they continuously put out such like engaging high quality content that literally everyone I know thinks is funny is totally hashtag goals. I feel like everyone that we've seen on their tiktok is so ridiculously talented. I cannot wait to see them perform a full show even if it's not I R L just yet. So mark your calendars, folks may 21st at nine PM. We'll all finally get to see the Buffalo cast do their thing on stage. We'll definitely all be tuning in and if you want to check them out too, we've got a link for you in our show notes and last up in news, we want to give a huge shout out to our pals over at the ordinary kids for entertaining us this past weekend with the rebroadcast of their virtual performance experience. As always, we had such a blast with your show. It's so phenomenally put together and it was so much fun to hear about all the behind the scenes. Fun facts in the post show. Q and A I was totally blown away seeing the apartment that they filmed the entire show in. Like, I had it in my head that they had gone somewhere, like they rented out a theater or something. But no, it was Pauly's apartment with all the furniture pushed to the other side of the room Somehow that makes it even more impressive to know that like all of that green screen work was done in such a small space. Yeah, the the whole Q and A was great. I had a great time tuning in. I'm such a film nerd. I love hearing about all the cute little behind the scenes stories that happened during shooting plus all the tidbits of tech that they shared. Absolutely loved it. Great job guys. A huge thank you to the ordinary kids for providing us once again with some top notch entertainment. We can't wait to see what you've got in store for us next and last and most uh we have a very sweet message from one of our listeners that we'd like to read on air. John, why don't you take this one? So this message is from Diet Rice. And he said, well, not too much to say, but I started listening to you last week at work. You three definitely get me through my long work shift. Just wanna say, thanks for the giggles and giving me something to look forward to. I want to say Nikki, you're making a lot of people proud with your shenanigans. Also just saying maybe some merch would be fucking awesome. Would love to have a sticker to support a great podcast. Keep it sleazy. You three die it rice. So I know who this is and I'm not going to say their name because they wrote it under a pseudonym. But this is literally the sweetest thing in the whole world. It warmed my heart so much when I read it. I love you so much and I can't wait to see you soon. And I think that diet Rice is right guys. I think we might need merch. I would be way more inclined to agree to merch if diet rice knew the difference between two and two. Leave them alone. Yeah, that's right. Diet Rice. I'm calling you the fuck out. Can you be nice? No, but for real diet rice. Thank you. I appreciate you. And honestly, I mean, we don't love Nicky. So somebody has to. That's true. Yeah. Diet rice. Thank you so much for your kind words. We're performers. We thrive on positive reinforcement and it's wonderful to hear that you're enjoying the show even if you need a remedial grammar class. And speaking of how much you love Nicky, let's move on to our most Nicky flavored segment. Nicky flavored snacks, like snacks. Yeah. What flavor is a knack snack. Um lemon. I really like lemon. Yeah, that sounds right. That definitely tracks. Yeah. Ok. Anyway, it's time for Nicky ques question. Let's do this. I want to talk about something a little different. This week being back at F N S S home in Red Bank has made me remember a lot that I like about that venue and a few things that aren't that great as I'm sure everyone out there can say about their theater and with everyone out there beginning to start back up, many casts are going to be looking for new venues or alternatives to their pre pandemic home. So let's talk about theaters. You guys have performed at a ton of venues since, you know, you're old and I've done a ton of random shows, including all the drive in shows this year. And I think there's something fun there, Nikki, that's not fair. How am I going to tie a history lesson into that? Life sucks. Aaron Move on. You'll find a way. I'm sure. I mean, I'm down with it in New York City. We have done so many outside shows, one-off appearances, parties, clubs. There's a ton of great ones to talk about. Just some in recent memory. We've done an N Y U show. We've done a Columbia show. We've done a Peloton spin class that was fucking wild. We performed at a wedding, we performed at Day Breaker shit. We even performed at a dog adoption fundraiser event before. Oh, man, we are definitely gonna have to talk about that one. Sure. I mean, I've had the pleasure of doing Rocky both in like really tiny indie theaters and big chain multi mark, whatever kind of crap. So I've done plenty of outside shows as well. We got something here we can talk about. I, I'm into this, so let's dig into it. I'll kick it off. I think the most obvious thing when we're talking about Rocky is you've got to go where they want you. For those who don't know F N S used to be in Aberdeen, New Jersey until we moved to Red Bank in August of 29 19. I think I feel like that's correct. August of 2019. We were in Aberdeen for 14 years, but then the theater got sold and turned into a brewery. So the company that we work with, which was Bow Tie at the time told us that they had a theater in Red Bank and Red Bank compared to Aberdeen is like New Jersey. Compared to New York. Like Aberdeen is very much old people town and Red Bank is very much like teenager town. So we were really excited and we were, we were very hopeful and then the pandemic happened. But we did, we get, we had a lot of good luck with Red Bank and the Red Bank Theater actually got bought by a nonprofit during the pandemic. So now we are the Bay Cinemas theater. So we're owned by Count Basie and it's pretty fucking dope. We ended up in a lucky circumstance there that the venue continued to really want us to keep the tradition going. And it's a fantastic space for doing Rocky. I like a lot about the Red Bank theater. The raised stage makes every aspect of Rocky Horror feel just a little bit cooler because going from just working on a floor stage to going up a stair and being on like this big actual staged area is just so ego boosting because you're like, I am the biggest dick in this room and I really like that. Our theater has two separate sections for seating. So we have like front seating and then there's a big space and a step and then there's a second row of seats that I think is really cool because it looks like an orchestra or something. I don't know, makes me feel very fancy and it always smells like popcorn, which makes me happy, but I don't think that infects performance value. Oh, definitely does. Absolutely. Does. Are you kidding me? But yeah, we went from like a tiny art theater in Aberdeen to a bigger Bouger and bad art theater in Red Bank. All in all it worked out really well. And boy, I do not miss having to run out the emergency door and around the entire outside of the theater every time I needed to exit from the front of the stage like you had to do at our old venue, there was an alley and it was spooky. But now we have a wing that we can change in and it's really cool. So, yeah. Oh, man, I remember that at, at one of the shows where Meg and I guested with you guys. I, I did Eddie Scott and when Eddie died, I stumbled out of the door at the front of the stage and I was just like, oh hello, I'm outside now. Shit, shit. Fuck. It's cold. Like it was a real kick in the pants in the middle of the show. Speaking of pants, it's nice when a venue comes along that's well tailored to Rocky E I don't get it. Oh oh my God, I get it. What the fuck? A lot of big theaters these days just aren't built for shadow casting. Like why would they be? Stadium theaters are dreadful. A lot of the modern seats are designed to make you want to lean back and like take in the screen capacities are going down across the board in favor of high end features. So about a year after I joined N Y C R H P S Chelsea New Sali went under like intense reconstruction. They started moving theaters left and right. They shifted our prop storage to this like wonderful walking closet on the second floor to this like little Cobby hole on the third, they gutted everything. Like they took down other theaters and empty space and they started adding offices and kitchens and bars and a bunch of different things like that. They totally modernized the seats too. So, like, they're like, lean back when you push the little button and they have like little, little feet rests and actually they even did it twice because they fucked it up the first time I remember that. Right? And then they kept us out of a theater for like even longer. It was wild and you see this like all over the place. Theaters were really pushing to modernize. Like right before the world shut down, everyone wanted a slice of the Alamo Drafthouse pie. You know, I I got to see shock treatment at an Alamo Draft House once man that that print was absolutely dumpster quality like it was incredibly red toned. It was missing like a ton of giant chunks get this. It was even missing the big reveal about Brad and Farley being brothers that whole scene with the judge and Betty, like finding out about Brad and Farley gone. Not even in the print. So on top of that, the lady running it was very kind and was happy to tell everyone before the show that this was a strictly no audience participation show which like whatever it's shock treatment. I don't really care. Like at least I got to see it on 35 millimeter but also, you know, slow your roll lady. But getting back to what we're talking about, like when theaters do renovations, like John's talking about like the extra space between the rows is nice in a modern theater. Like you can't knock that. It's super good for running around during a show. So I mean, at least some of the upgrades have that going for it. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that works out better with some of the modern theaters. Like we have a direct A V hookup, which is beautiful. We can actually give them digital four K video for like special events where we do trailers or pre shows and promos and we're still in a big giant theater. We've got an extra floor that we can often use. We've got prop storage and even an offstage area in all the different theaters. But sometimes you don't have the luxury of your home theater. Sometimes you get called on to do stuff for one off shows. And when you're doing four higher shows, you've just got to work with the venue you've got and hope that everything goes well. I talked about it a little bit earlier but there was this one show that we did. It wasn't even really a show that we were just kind of like special honored guests, but we did a dog adoption fundraiser event and literally all we did was time warp sweet tea and that was it. But they had literally no venue. What we had was like a speaker, a microphone, which I don't know why we needed that. And I plugged my phone into the speaker and we just did the time warp and sweet tea as best as we could with like no state like it was just in the middle of the, of the event. So when we got there, we were like, oh, where do you want us to set up? And they're like, oh, uh, well, the Elvis impersonator is going to be standing here, so I guess you can do it here. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, like, yeah, like one of those events like Elvis impersonator. I was like, all right, we, we out here where we belong, I had no idea. Oh, yeah, there was an Elvis impersonator and we didn't, we didn't have a place to go. We just, there was a microphone where the Elvis impersonator, like, plugged his music in from his phone and he just like, sang Elvis over instrumental tracks and sounded like Elvis and that was the area that we had to work with. It was just a slightly empty piece of asphalt on the ground where nobody was allowed to walk. And I think that that was probably one of the most frustrating places to have to work with because it was just like, there was no area. It was just like an empty slab of concrete and they were like, go which it, it wasn't bad because like, they didn't even say that they were gonna have like a risen stage or anything like that. So I didn't really expect anything and we still did it, you know, we still did it. Everyone was super pumped that we were there. We had a bunch of people afterwards come over to our merch table and buy shirts and all of that stuff. So like it was, it was clearly a successful event, but it was just weird to just do it with absolutely nothing. But you know what? It was still rocky. So this actually reminds me of a similar story that I have and the more that I think about it, the funnier it gets because I'm just remembering more things that were janky about it. This had to be like a year to two years ago. I feel like this was like 2019, maybe 2018. We did every Halloween, we do a trunk retreat in some type of town. I don't remember which town this one was in, but we were doing a trunk retreat which for those of you who don't know, you decorate the back of your trunk and you give out candy to kids and it's really fun and F and S always takes part in it and we decorate it with all of our props. This one said that they wanted us to perform. So we sent a riff, a Magenta. I was dressed as Janet, I think my boyfriend at the time was dressed as a trans, like we did not send a full cast because they just said they wanted us to do time warp, but we weren't really sure what was going on. So eventually, like the director came over to us and was like, hey, like, if you guys want to perform now is the time. So she walked us, it was like in front of like a town hall and like she walked us to like this patio area, but it was like very small. It was very close to all the other cars because it was just like a parking lot and we played time warp off of our phones. The Riff and Magenta did 90% of it. And then I Columbia it as Janet and I was wearing leggings and like converse and there were six people standing across from us watching it dancing along and three of them were actually uh backup dancers for the Michael Jackson impersonator that was there. I love that. We have a regularly occurring thing here. Yeah. So it was, it was literally me and my two close friends chilling on some asphalt next to an impersonator. Um But I feel like John said we still pulled it off. So, you know, it technically was Rocky. Oh Man, see, isn't it lovely to know that Rocky Horror as a culture is essentially the same thing as an Elvis and Michael Jackson impersonator, whatever. We're still better than mimes. Mi is the lowest art form. Fight me. But man, ok, I've got a horror story where like, we weren't even sure if the show was going to be able to go off the venue was that bad. So I remember when I did this was probably, it had to have been just a few months after I joined my first cast. I was in the Midwest at the time in Nebraska. And our cast director had, I think it was as a favor to this venue uh to a, a theater that was like an hour away. And it was this tiny little theater that was on like this main street usa in this small ass midwestern town we got there and we went in and I saw this venue and I go, you've got to be kidding me. Like, where's the other theater? Because this thing had to have been, I don't know, 15 or 20 ft wide. The entire theater there was a single aisle that ran down the left hand side of the thing. And it was only like I kid you not like two ft wide up at the front. There was, there was practically nothing, there was like three ft of not even really stage, just space up front, no exits on either side, the venue was atrocious. They ended up cramming 20 people into this place. And then like we had to have the virgins do stuff in their seats since the rows were too narrow for them to even stand comfortably. So, like, nobody got up to time warp or do anything because you couldn't, you just couldn't move in this place. It was not a great venue by any means. I mean, I can't think of a worse one. The venue in Paris is kind of similar to it. Like, it's an old European art house, but they've still got a stage and they've got a front of house exit. So it's still miles better than this place. And you know, all these stories that people tell about nightmare venues. I have to imagine that probably contributed to R C O creating their club Rocky shows. It's like a nice compact version of Rocky that can play anywhere. It's not even a full length feature. They probably use it for stuff like weddings or parties that they want to do a one-off hire on. I know that R C O gets booked for like a bunch of random different types of gigs and anywhere from like a big art house theater to like the back of a coffee shop. So I can really imagine that club Rocky really comes in handy when they show up to the venue and there's nowhere to perform and they're like, well, Club Rocky, it is. And I think that that recipe is really brilliant and something that a lot of casts should consider, especially if they get booked. Outside of their usual theater, especially with the possibility of needing to take a cast on the road if you're looking for a new venue. But enough of the downer stories, let's talk about those awesome venues that we got to perform in. There's two venues that come to mind when I think of my favorite venues to perform in the first one was this Halloween. It was during uh the pandemic tour that we went on for all of our outdoor shows. And we did a show in, I think East Brunswick at the Stress Factory, which was like a famous comedy club over there. And it was so fucking nice. It was a Wednesday night which is just not time for Rocky Horror. And the show was sold out. And when we went, the audience just had such a fierce energy. Everything we did, they were so pumped about, they were screaming and cheering and to paint a picture of this audience. I feel like the like the average demographic was 40 year old white women like moms on a Wednesday night having a wine and watching Rocky Horror and going absolutely fucking ballistic. That's my jam. It was so fun. I was playing Rocky. They loved me, they loved Frank, they loved everybody. We had such a good show and like, it was just really a cool venue. There were two stages, one that was very big and then one that was a little smaller connected to the big one and they both had stairs on either sides of them. And there was a lot of floor space and this was outdoors, all of it. They had a tent so just in case it rained, but this was all outdoors. The floor was all turf, like grass, but it was just so cool. And I really want to go back, I really want to do more shows. I loved it. I loved it so much. They also had a green room for us to change in where they would keep their comedians. And I thought that was really cool. I was like, I can't talk, I'm in the green room. Um But I loved that the Stress Factory was so much fun. And then we also performed at the Brook, which is a like old historic theater in Bound Brook in New Jersey. This one was fucking absurd. It was a huge stage with an orchestra pit right underneath it with a net, like you could fall into it and die. Uh And then you could also access the orchestra pit from under the stage. So like we had Transylvanian's just chilling down there fucking with us while we were on stage. And then there was a huge audience section and the ceiling had like all of these beautiful paintings on it. And it was like an actual theater. Like they had wings and they had like, what is it called when there's an upstairs in a theater, the upstairs in a theater, no, like like the backstage had two floors, the upstairs behind the stage in the theater. No, there's a word for it. But the backstage had a staircase and the staircase would go like that went over the theater and there was a story that a woman was pushed off of it during a show and she died and the theater was haunted by her. And that one was so fun. I played Janet and the audience again was crazy. It was awesome. It was just so much fun and it worked out so well. I loved it. But what about you, John? What was your favorite? Oh my gosh, no contest. N Y U like no contest. N Y U has been a place that we have performed in for many years. We usually perform as part of kind of like their welcome week and the place that they set us up in the, the stage is super deep. The auditorium is gigantic. There's so much room to like run around and like just vibe and feel yourself with like the audience and stuff. The audience is always gigantic. It's always like almost a sold out show. The sound quality is so nice. The lighting is great. They give us a green room behind the stage. There's so much room backstage. It's like performing it at an actual theater as opposed to a movie theater. It's so great and the staff is always wonderful to work with, but Aaron has been around forever. So you must have some awesome venue. Stories, some, but I'm, I'm gonna go with a couple where actually I didn't perform and these were places that were awesome to see Rocky in also, I'm gonna brag. So the two that I'm going to talk about are Oakley Court and the Berlin Show. Oakley Court is a horrible venue. If you're trying to like perform Rocky, the audio doesn't see, I think, right. Usually the, the, the space is too big, there's too many people. The ceilings are really short and narrow, but man, you're at the fucking castle watching Rocky, right? And like, I've had friends with me that have gotten up and like performed, you know, like old school style at the Oakley Court Show where they'll just, you know, oh, I'm gonna do sweet tea, why not? Um And that's super cool like that, that's an example of like horrible space for a Rocky cast, but awesome to get to like sit there and enjoy the movie, you know, in the place where it was filmed, the Berlin Show exact opposite. Fantastic, fantastic place. The theater that they put the, the Berlin Show on at is like in the middle of a park in this. It's this giant open air amphitheater, huge pop up screen in front, like a massive stage. They've got trailers that are nearby that everybody can use as green room and that kind of stuff, but the space is massive and it seats like 2000 people. So when you get everybody in there, like you just feel like you're in a giant Giant Rocky show. Absolutely love that. That the echoes of everything coming off. Like the A P really sounds like there's a big chorus of voices coming at you. Uh Admittedly some of them are in German. Uh But like it's, it's super fun. I love that venue. I think my absolute favorites aren't when I'm performing. It's running around for tech and like John said, when we get to be in real theaters or at least spaces that are more built for performance, although not all of those spaces are made equal either hell, that's why concert so great. Often you get the home theater or the organizers shop around for a great huge venue like the big ass theater that we did for Archaeo Con three. The stage was gigantic. The offstage wings were so big. The backstage was gigantic. It was so much room. They had a full loading dock, they had dressing rooms. The staircase was terrifying. I remember that but you can't, you can't win them all, you know. Yeah, I mean, I only did Ralph for R K O so I was able to get off stage immediately and take it all in afterwards. And man, it was so awesome to get to see people literally running around a great big stage like it really felt like a full blown theater show. That venue was awesome. It was huge. There was multitiered seating. You have a giant proscenium. Like it was very much a, a theater theater. I'm gonna show you my proceum does it arch because you might want to see a doctor about that. Both of you to assume that I have health insurance. Oh my God, I do. But both of you to assume that I will. Oh Man. Oh Jesus. If you want to run around a giant stage, let's talk about drive in shows. How about your stage? Is this entire 60 yard parking lot. That's a whole other set of challenges. We did two drive in shows on Halloween and first of all, the first show that we did, it poured the entire show. So we had to set up these tents that like I think somebody brought a tent and the venue had like two tents. So we set them all up and then crim literally performed with an umbrella and halfway through the show, everyone except for Colombia was just kind of like, fuck it. We're going to get wet and that's going to be fine. The text setups got a little awkward because you know, you have to bring all of your stuff in and then find a place, place in the parking lot to set it up. And I think the biggest thing with Drive In shows that I dislike is only the first four rows of cars are going to see the show and then the rest are just kind of going to get bent and have to watch the movie. So that was a thing when we did drive in shows was we tried as hard as we could to expand ourselves as deep into the parking lot as we could. So, like I played Rocky and I ran like six cars back or six rows back of cars. And during floor show, we went to like the general admission parking because VIP was like 17 rows of cars and then general admission and couldn't see anything. So it just, it brought a lot of new challenges that we hadn't really experienced before because we were so privileged of only having to perform in like these big theaters. Drive ins are a new challenge and it was very exciting to kind of try to tackle that. But I don't know, it was definitely a lot John, didn't you do a drive in show too? How was that place? I did, but it was kind of the complete opposite experience. I got called in like 48 hours before a show because R K O genuinely could not find a Janet to perform at this one show and it was at like the height of the COVID quarantine. So uh they legitimately could not find anybody else. I was available and I ran up to R K O to go do the show. And it was a fantastic show. I had a lot of fun. Rowan was my Frank Harley was my Brad Vic was my Rocky. It was a great show like it was fantastic. However, we were in this gigantic drive in field so big that there were three screens playing three different movies. Rocky being one of them. And we were on this like little trailer that you just attach to a pickup truck kind of trailer. And we were only allowed to perform on that because the ground was really mushy and running around on grass and dirt and heels is a recipe for disaster. But also the trailer was kind of a recipe for disaster. I almost busted my ass on that trailer like three or four times as Janet, but we weren't allowed to get off of it. And we were like I said, this was in the middle of quarantine. So we were extremely socially distanced between the stage and the audience. Like the audience was at least 100 ft away from us. They absolutely loved it when we were driving away. They were like honking their horns at us and, and stuff like they, they had a great time, but it was a wildly different experience because we weren't even able were allowed to leave the stage at the end of the day though. Like it's Rocky, you go to wherever the show is, maybe that's taking a bus for three hours to end up at a drive in or maybe it's performing on the straight edge non denominational, but definitely God fearing early morning. No boos party crews. I'm sorry. A what? Oh, yeah. You heard me? You can ask Savannah about that one some time. But it is so true though. You can make Rocky work anywhere. Well, almost anywhere. As long as you don't have roving street gangs, beating up the cast and audience before the show. Is that a segue into history time? Because damn, that's kind of dark. Yeah, it's not a great story. This comes from creatures of the night, the story of New York's history very early on when the first performances started happening at the Waverly theater, everyone would line up beforehand. This is like 1977 where the cast and the audience would line up in front of the theater. It's in the village in New York City. Well, in the late seventies near the village, you had Little Italy and Roaming around Little Italy. You had a couple of street gangs like real west side story style street gangs except they dancing and singing. Uh No, they were bringing baseball bats and chains to beat up the freaks standing outside of the theater. So yeah, that, that was not a good time. So one night uh I think it was near Christmas, the gangs got so like in everybody's face that like the theater had to like open the doors and let people in early, but people ended up getting bashed with baseball bats, like literally beaten in front of this theater so bad that the Waverley was like, we're done no more. Rocky here. And the entire like earliest people who had started doing Rocky had to find new homes. So there was a theater out in Queens. There was a couple of theaters in Manhattan. Some of the cast went out to Jersey. Everybody kind of floated apart. The theater in Queens said, hey, if you guys wanna come out and, and do shows, we'll bus you and the audience from the village all the way out to Queens and back in after the show. Absolutely insane. So all of these people would like gather in the village to get on this bus to go out to Queens to do Rocky, but it was still in the village. So of course, the gangs just started coming to terrorize the people waiting for the bus and then even worse when they get off the bus in Queens, you got a whole different set of gangs standing there with like ice balls and shovels ready to terrorize them there. Absolutely horrible situation for that. They eventually moved theaters to another one in Queens. That one was a bit better. And later in the year or the next year, I think they eventually found the Eighth Street playhouse that it just, you know, opened back up and started playing Rocky again. So they moved back to Eighth Street and that's where New York found its home for so long. But man, it's stories like that, that make me just realize like things could be a lot worse off today. I mean, at least some progress has been made since the late seventies. Man. I certainly hope no casts out there have to actively deal with hate crimes on a weekly fucking basis. Like that is just so fucked up for real. But all's well, that ends well, right. The New York cast was at Eighth Street for a long time. That's the home theater for Sal Lilia Story and all the other original Eighth Street cast members. And it was the home theater for the fan club and really was a national icon for East Coast Rocky Horror. A rough start. But they found their home as we hope all of you out there will be able to do once everything returns to, you know, not shit. And, and that's our show. We want to thank Diet Rice for their sweet message. We're all very proud of Nikki too. And we're glad that someone finally called out what an awesome person she is. I would like to reiterate that. I was told to read that and do not actually believe it. It was almost sweet, but I'll take it if you've got a question you'd like for us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or some community news, you'd like us to talk about or even just a cool story from your time in the Rocky horror community. We'd love to include it in our show. Just go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to share with us. We all really love getting to hear about the cool shit you guys have been working on. We're totally obsessed with all the Rocky Horror projects that have been floating around out there. And we really enjoy getting to share your work with the whole community. Plus, if your cast is working on something fun, our virtual show or maybe even a real life show, send that too and we will help spread the word, spread the word, spread the world. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps us grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talky content, check us out on Facebook, Instagram and tiktok, all at Rocky Talkie podcast and we will talk to you next week. Bye bye. See you hit, go on my button daddy. I don't like that. Yeah, we've recently told you all about or the fuck what happened? Just like tried to fight the door. Oh, well, did she win? I, I, no, she ran over to me as if she lost. What did you do? Damn door? And in addition to playing Janet in the 26 UK tour has also worked. Hello? Hello? And it did, I don't know, I would eat Eddie's meatloaf any time if you know what I mean? Well, Aaron, you heard her? You take what he phonetically said that I was proud of him. I mean, he did. What do you, what is it? A soft g in good faith, isn't it? Like a? Yeah. Yeah, that, that indeed says I get you and you not, you don't. What the fuck is this? I should I roll with what Aaron did? No. Uh We, we're gonna, we're gonna wait for John to finish unwrapping his bubble wrap. Tinfoil. Yeah, I'm good penis. OK? Uh Well, Aaron, you heard her? Uh It sure would be nice if we could do Reefer madness at R K 04. Roy doesn't J C C C PC. Sorry, C C C C C P. Uh And just uh you going to say it? No, it says the end of the word in the event description. So fuck you guys. That's fair. What is this exchange? It's real funny but like what the fuck is this? That's fair. Nicky. That's not fair. How am I gonna tie a history lesson into that? Oh You'll find a way. I'm I'm sorry. That's not my color. I don't know why I started fucking bleeding it. I need to like swallow my spit. You know you do that, buddy. You do that. I would also like to say when I told Zephyr that I wanted a, a write up of this, he goes, that's a great question actually. And then 10 minutes later, he said, I have no idea. And I said, wow, that's fantastic. I love that. And he said, thanks. I always try to be a helpful P P man. Peepy man. What does that stand for? Like P P like penis? Oh, it's, it's not a double entendre. It's just, no, I think it's just Zephyr being stupid. Love it. Yep. Well, well, thanks. Daddy. Ew. I hate that. We want your face. Zephyr. That's all. Hold on. I'm sorry, I have a mouth full of soup. Is that what you call it nowadays? Josh should get that looked at. Hm. Yes, you should. I'm so sorry. This is taking me so long to chew. That's what she said. Hm. Josh should get that looked at you guys fucking suck. That's what she said. I'm flipping off the mic. Who's Mike? Ok, let's do this. All right, let's do this. Dr sorry. I was pitting cobb up with a fork. Hold on. I got actually open creatures of the night. Yeah, mama got that bunch of crunch cake. I'm eating my soup dumplings. Mama got that bunch of crunch cake. Bye bye bye. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye bye, patient. I'd rather die than hook up with another stray away guy. I'm sorry the fuck is that? It's a fucking it's a song I'm stopping the thing. Ok, bye.