Hello to all of you. Unconventional convention is out there. Welcome to Rocky Talkie. It's podcast. All about everything and anything Rocky Horror. I'm Aaron. I'm, I'm John, I'm Jacob. All right guys, we got, got, got the three of us back together this week. That's great. Uh Before we get started, we're going to do the thing. How you been, how's your week, Ben? You guys do anything fun this week, John, what were you up to? Uh well, I am officially home from San Diego from Twitch. So that was super fun. My feet are still in pain. I was on my feet for, I think I walked an average of like nine or 10 miles a day when I was in San Diego between the convention traveling around San Diego. I went to the San Diego Zoo, which is criminally expensive, by the way. Really? I went, yeah. Uh so like, well, like take a guess, like, how much do you think a zoo is like a, like a daily pass to go to the zoo? 20 bucks. Yeah, 15 to $25. Like, yeah, this is right. Ok. The San Diego Zoo is $64 on an off day. Oh, my goodness. Do I get to ride the gorillas, like? Right. Ok. But in its fairness, uh we actually were there for seven hours straight and we were able to see everything. So, like, I think it was actually kind of worth it, but I will admit that when we got to the front gate and they were like, ok, it's $64. Me and my friend looked at each other like, do the orangutan suck my dick. You have the biggest giraffes like beating the penguins fucking caviar like shit. Yeah. So we did that. Uh I went to Disneyland and I was there from eight AM to midnight. So 16 hours straight at Disney, which was a very great fulfilling journey. Uh Also my legs felt like that they could fall off at that moment. But Twitch Com was great. I got to meet a lot of my friends that I have met through Twitch the past two years in person. I cos played. So I was there as Steve Harrington from stranger things and Cole Cassidy from Overwatch. So people were like getting pictures with me and stuff like that. It was a really great time. I'm honestly still kind of recovering from it and I've been back for like a week at this point. Uh We ended up having to stay a day over because we are as and we missed our flight. So we had to rebook our flights and the cheapest flight back was actually 24 hours after we originally were supposed to leave. So, uh that was why we ended up going to the zoo. But uh so we were actually out there a day longer than we needed to be. Oh, no, an extra day in San Diego. What am I gonna do? Go to the zoo apparently. Yeah, $64 later. But it was actually it was a really great time. Uh My wallet is suffering and my feet are suffering, but I'm glad that I did it. What's up, Jacob? How did you, how have you been, what's been going on in your life? All right. So I dropped my phone while I was like sleeping or something. Uh Sunday and it broke and I had to get it fixed at Apple. So I had a few hours where I was phone and I was on the subway for a few of those hours and it gave me a chance to read because of course, the only time I can read is when I don't have my phone, of course, tracks. And I opened Tartu by Moli or Moli by Tato. I, I, I don't know which way it is, but it's the, the, the author is like a, a French dude who is, you know, around Shakespeare's time. Probably a little after Shakespeare and holy shit, man. It's good. Fuck it. Like, it's fucking old, old writing, like old theatrical writing, right is like, it's got scan fucking in it which you know, all the, all the words rhyme, there's a pattern to how everything is said. Fuck every word, every sentence like rhymes with the next sentence or everything's like in pairs. And it's so poetic, like lyrically poetic and it, and it all does better than makes sense. It's like, oh Jesus Christ, like if I, I don't know if I were sexually aroused by literature, I could masturbate to this religiously. You know what I mean? I never took you as a fan. I really never did. I'm a theater person and when I was in high school, one of the productions we did was Moli Air by Tato and I never saw it, but it's just been in my head of like, well, I should probably read that. So nice being literary. Yeah. What about you? A, I can't even read. It must be nice. Right. Uh, no, I, I mean, I know it's non rocky stuff. We're going to talk about a couple of the things that I, that I've gotten up to later in the show. I mean, it has just been the start of our Halloween season. So it is who we are. Three shows in, uh, to the what? 12 shows that we've got, we've got one this coming Friday and there's still no cast list. Meg, well, you know, you could give her crap but she's actually off checking out a venue right now. They're coordinating where they're going to move a piano in this venue for us. So, uh, she is off doing God's work on that one. But, yeah, I mean, it's just been so much Rocky and so much just like crazy, everything I've, it's honestly been interfering with my sleep and work schedule. So that's, uh, mostly me just trying to catch up on sleep in the hours where I'm not either working or doing Rocky. Yeah, I've had a few friends that have been asking to like come up and stay for a few days in October and I basically had to tell everyone. Sorry, I can't. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's been some people from Mario, Justin came down and the only reason it was like, we'll have time to hang out is because they did Frank the other night at the show and it was like you can come down and we can hang, but hanging is gonna be doing the show. So it's that time of the month. It's that time of the year. It is October. All right guys. That's out of the way. Let's just move it on over to our first segment. Global news. Global, like my penis. It's round. Yeah. First up in global news, much as the majestic salmon carries within it. The innate knowledge of exactly when to start its annual pilgrimage upstream. Barry Bostick's spidey senses have started tingling and you know what that means? Uh Jacob is violating the court mandated 500 ft restraining order. First of all, a thing can mean two things. Second of all, you know, perfectly well, he's talking about my bear bears Rocky Horror Halloween tour. They say once a year on the eve of Halloween, a chosen few Rocky cats will be visited by Johnny, old Uncle Barry and he will call upon us to perform for him like the dancing monkeys. We all and they'll like it and beg for more. I like that. Spooky scary there. Well, for once, Jacob is right, I can't believe. I said that Barry has been going hard with promoting his annual Rocky Horror tour this year. And according to a recent Facebook post, he's going to be hitting get this 22 cities and that includes sugar Loaf and Kalamazoo. I have no idea where either of those places are, but they are fun to say, Sugar Loaf, ancestral home place of meat loaf. Jeez. And I thought our October was bad. That's almost one city every day. That's insane. Although according to a recent interview with the digital journal, one of the most complicated parts of the trip for Barry will be packing. He states that the hardest trip to pack four is a two week trip packing such a dilemma. Yes, packing always a dilemma. Poor Uncle Barry. When asked what attendees should expect to find at one of Barry's tour shows? He advises attendees to look forward to a fun party. A lot of rudeness and quote, they can expect to get their freak on after two years of being shut in. If you know what I mean? He's not wrong. Last year. Might have been our first year back post pandemic. Lovato. But this is the first Halloween where the overall cultural vibe is that the pandemic is over. Now. I'm not trying to comment on the legitimacy of the statement, but it's really been fascinating to see what it's done for our audiences, both in size and enthusiasm. Oh, yeah, I mean, we would always do here in New York, usually about six shows during Halloween week. Right. We do back to back shows on a couple of nights whether, you know, it all depends on if Halloween's on a Monday and blah, blah, blah and they, they always sold very well. We sold out those, you know, all the time. But uh it didn't have the same kind of like fervor and rush to kind of get tickets to our shows that we've seen this year, every single one of our shows has sold out almost as soon as the tickets have gone up for it. And you can really feel that energy in the audience. Like for these first couple that we've done so far, boy, did they want to be there and have a good time and like so hyped so hyped. I think it's a combination of both with the pandemic. Restrictions lifting as well as just the new theater and the location that N Y C is in, we have sold out literally every single show that we have had in this theater since we started except one and it was fourth of July weekend and even that one was like close to selling out, right? I mean, Jacob, you've, you've been around for five years now, right? Like you can feel the difference, you know. Yeah, my thought to contribute. Um I know that Meg, this is, this is in large part due to Meg reaching out more. We weren't looking at like other theaters before the pandemic, something just changed. And Meg has been like a superstar and has gone to like a bunch of other locations and venues and we've been performing all around the city, which is absolutely crazy. But that's a big thing that we didn't do before the pandemic and now it feels like we are just absolutely huge everywhere, right? We have a show once a month in Brooklyn and it feels like every time we go back there, the crowd gets rowdier and rowdier and loves us more and it's a better and better time and other than that, right, we've got like five different non regular locations throughout the month of October. And even before October, we've had other locations that we've been performing at, which it's just wild to me right before the pandemic for. So, for so many years I think personally it was, I was with the cast like three years pre pandemic and it was the same, same theater, bunch of, bunch of shows, eight a week, 88 a month, but it was the same theater each time. And now it's like we are traveling around the city on a weekly basis, which I think is so cool that I feel like that desire to be in multiple places actually stemmed because of the pandemic because after we were not performing in our usual space and when we were not performing at all, after COVID restrictions started lifting a little bit more, you know, we started looking for other venues because our venue at that moment did not want us performing there because it was a movie theater and there was a lot of restrictions on those. So we looked at outside venues, we looked at hotels, we looked at drive-ins, we looked at uh so many other different areas. And I think that that now that we are back into a movie theater that mindset of still needing to perform elsewhere, kind of stuck with us and with Meg and I love it, it, I feel like it grants us more legitimacy as a cast. Yeah, and I don't have uh metrics or data to back this up. But I, I feel like the impression I've got is that uh a lot more venues, smaller venues, you know, small little theaters, bars, that kind of stuff, stuff are kind of looking for acts to put on. Right. They're looking for ways to fill slots and I, I, I feel like there's just so much more of that opportunity since everything's kind of, you know, started coming back where, you know, the bars are all open, the, the venues are all open, but they may not have a packed schedule and especially for a show that's like, no, you can just drop us in, in October and like we come in, do the thing. You don't have to worry about anything except, I don't know, selling tickets and, you know, selling liquor at the bar and they're just really happy and, and a lot of spaces have been open to, you know, trying out something that we would have never tried, you know, before the pandemic. Yep. Felt that so back to Barry's show, Barry goes on to note that he believes the key to Rocky's longevity is its fan base stating we just made a little movie for five weeks and the fans took it over and basically stole it from us. Uh Barry is always so super nice to the Rocky community. I love a man who knows what side his bread is buttered on. And as a final note to young aspiring actors, Barry advises them to get a good hobby. You will spend more time doing your hobby than your vocation to which we in the Rocky horror community say you're not wrong Barry. You're not wrong for real. Barry is about halfway through his Halloween tour and still has 12 cities to go home. Stretch. Bear bear. If you'd like to scope out his upcoming schedule, check out his interview or just Feast your peepers on his hot, hot face. We've got the full article linked for you in our show notes and yeah, if you do end up going to a Berry show, make sure to meet up with Jacob, he's gonna be 500 ft away from the theater. A thing can mean two things. Aaron 500 ft to it. Ant is like 300 centimeters. So what, what is this a restraining order for ants? Exactly. It might be. You don't know, we don't know what Barry's intention was when he made it. So I feel like this conversation is the same as like what is heavier? A pound of feathers or a pound of rocks, right? And everyone knows it's a pound of rocks. Yes, of course. Go kick rocks. Speaking of rocky liberties being awesome, we've got some fun news from across the pond. This week. We learned that Meatloaf's bad out of hell album holds the record for the most copy sold ever within the UK ever, ever. Apparently bad out of hell has stayed on the top 100 charts for 530 weeks straight. Damn. Go meet. Interestingly, the number two album is James Blunt's back to Bedlam. He beat out a fellow brit. Good for him. He was released 45 years ago this month and was comprised mostly of songs written by Jim Steinman, including a little number you might have heard Paradise By the Dashboard Light. Never heard of it. Yeah. I don't know what that's about. It's a callback at Rocky. I know that. Ah. Right. I always thought that song was particularly good because it featured another up and coming artist Ellen Foley, an actress, probably best known for playing Billy Young on the sitcom Night Court Man. I love Night Cart. Uh, so, yeah, Ellen Foley, after recording with me, she went on to release five studio albums. Her sixth came out only just last year. Uh but not only is Ellen still recording, she's also still touring, uh just this past week, she played at a New York City venue called The Cutting Room. Aaron is this story time disguised as a new segment. Maybe. Did you go see Ellen Foley? Maybe? Was there anyone under the age of 50 in the audience with you? Uh No, I don't. No. Uh Did you have a good time? Yes. Yeah. No, it was super fun. You wanna tell us about your favorite part, buddy? Ok. So this was super cool meg and I went to see, uh Ellen Foley. I had not planned on doing this, like at all tickets came up, you know, a couple of weeks ago and I was just like, Oh, shit. It's Ellen Foley. And yet she sang, uh, on Paradise by the Dashboard Lights on the album. Uh, she was not the, the person who was touring with Meat loaf, uh, for that album's, you know, like tour. But, uh, she did sing on the album. She didn't do a lot of meat loaf stuff. Unsurprisingly, she did a lot of her own stuff and, uh, it was really awesome. I mean, she's got to be, I think 70 at this point, but she still has that like rock star energy and she was just having a good time. Her and her band played a ton of different stuff, uh, all spanning throughout her career. Um, and it was really good. She was fantastic. Uh, the venue was really nice. I was, you know how it is when you go see a show now and it's in a smaller venue and you spend half the time watching the show and the other half of the time going. Oh, I wonder if Rocky would work in here. So, like, we were a little distracted during parts of it. But, uh, it was really great. I, I loved it. She was fantastic. She did do uh a really, really nice touching tribute uh to Jim and me as her encore after, you know, they wrapped up, she came back out for, uh an encore and she sang, uh Heaven Can Wait and spoke about, you know, Jim Steinman and Meat loaf and, you know, that kind of stuff. It, it was actually incredibly moving, especially when you consider the fact that her career kind of reached the peaks that it did because those two people were involved in her life. And it was, it was just really nice. It was, it was really cool to hear her reminisce about like, stories from them and the impact that they had had on her as she was starting out and, like, it was, it was just a really, really fun, you know, hour and 20 minute concert. It was, it was quick and, you know, uh, it wasn't too crazy. But, yeah, there, there was probably not a single person under 50 in the audience. Uh, other than me and myself, actually, I take that back there was two girls who were sitting there who were probably in, like, their mid twenties or whatever and I could not figure out how they knew Ellen Foley or, like, why they were familiar with this. Uh, and then the backup singer, uh, that was singing with her came off, uh, after the show and walked straight up to these two girls and started talking to him, like, ah, they're the roommates. That's why they're here under 50. Yep. That tracks just support the homies. But, yeah, it was a great show. It was a great show. I really enjoyed it. It looks as though her US tour is completed but fear not if you'd like to catch Ellen on stage. She'll be doing a tour through the Netherlands in January of 2023 which we will of course link for you in our show notes. I will totally be there. Going, going to the Netherlands. I hear their uh their zoos are slightly cheaper though. And with that, we're gonna move you on over to some unity news for our community news segment. This week, we found a heartwarming Halloween love story all the way from Canada. This week, Streets of Toronto ran an article about the nuptials of Rina Eli from the excited mental state cast who are celebrating their 18th anniversary. This year, the two met as teenagers back in 2005 at the former Blore Cinema standing in line for the Rocky horror picture show. Rayna recalls that to pass the time in line. She started singing songs from Hedwig and the angry inch to herself. A cute guy in line with her. Eli started singing along and asked to sit with her once the movie let in after the movie, they exchanged MS N messenger handles and the rest was history. They attended prom together, attended the same university after graduating high school and officially tied the knot four years ago in a relatively traditional Jewish ceremony, relatively traditional. I mean, it wouldn't be a rocky wedding without some weirdness thrown in the couple played science fiction double feature as their guests were seated for the ceremony Reno walked down the aisle to the origin of Love. Plus they hired a bunch of drag queens to perform at their after party and all the guest. Cool enough to make the invite list dance the time warp together. Uh So gay, so gay. Uh So, so gay, I guess having a bunch of fucking drag queens at your wedding is that's pretty fucking gay shit. It's pretty fucking awesome too. Yeah, I feel like a lot of times when I go to weddings, uh I feel like at least at my age, a lot of the people that are like getting married right now and this is just a general statement, but like a lot of them are straight. So all the weddings are the fucking same, you know. Uh I recently went to uh this wedding. It was actually a cast alumni for N Y C. Their wedding was extremely gay and it was on a boat and it was fantastic and it was a really nice break from like the normalcy of what a wedding is. Savanna. And I obviously have talked about marriage quite a lot in our six years of being together and we don't plan on tying them out any time soon. But trust folks, dear readers when we do that is going to be literally the biggest party of the century and everyone knows it because of who meets Savannah Arts people. Yeah, I mean, I I'm here for a weirder, non-traditional weddings obviously. Um I, I think that, like, fuck all of the traditional. So if, if the stuff, you know, is something you value, cool, you know, whatever, do it. But like, don't just do the same boring thing because it's expected, you know, like it should, it should be a big celebration of you and your friends and your relationship and the people that, you know, that, that value to you and like you got weird friends do a weird wedding, you know. Exactly. And I have weird friends seriously. But this adorable article cites Rocky as the secret to the success of their teenage romance. Rina complain. No complains. Rina comments. I remember feeling very self-conscious about having to explain to my friends that there's this weird movie from the seventies and every month I get dressed up and watch it and I can quote the whole thing because I've seen it 200 times and then I met someone who not only understood that but shared that if you start your relationship knowing the weirdest thing about the other off the bat, that's a great foundation. Oh, that's a very sweet story. And the fact that Rocky is the weirdest thing about you. That sounds about right. And I mean, come on as uh people who have either met our significant others at Rocky or, I mean, John, you didn't meet Sav at Rocky. But the like it was the show did play a really big part. In your relationship right from the get go. So, OK, I'd like to offer for this question to the room. Do you think Rocky's presence in your relationship has impacted it? And actually even better, has that impact actually been positive? It has not been positive because one of the only things that me and Savannah argue about on a regular basis is why don't you put your costumes back in the costume room? Savannah, Why do they sit in a suitcase for three weeks until I have to play Frank? And then three hours before I leave when I'm packing, I can't find the Frank Inverter costume. I feel like, uh, I feel like that, that conversation has happened a few times. Yeah, it happens like weekly. No, it's, it's actually been, uh, I, I think that Rocky has impacted our relationship for the better because it gave us something to do. Uh, I mean, like we've been together for six years. There's only so much that you can do as a couple before you're like, well, I guess we're just people who are a couple who have our own schedules and our own likes and dislikes. So we just keep to ourselves. Rocky has always been something that like the two of us could do regularly and it always really is such a treat for one of the two of us or for both of us. It always is such a treat for the both of us when we find out that we're casted in like the same show opposite each other. Obviously, that's happened a lot more infrequently recently because Savannah now works in theater off Broadway and Broadway. So their schedule doesn't really align much with Rocky. But uh I really value the days where like the two of us used to perform together and it was always something that was like, really special and unique. Obviously for people listening to this podcast, it's not really that unique but to the norm, you know, they're like, oh my gosh, it's so cute that the two of you like perform together and stuff. That's so cool. That's so unique. That's so fun. I mean, and it is kind of unique in the context of like, I've known a lot of people not in the Rocky community, right? Where it's like, I'll ask him, oh, what did you guys get up to, you know, this weekend? And they're like, I, I don't, I don't know, we, we went to a sip and paint and then sat at the bar for seven hours like, oh OK. So you guys have fun. I don't know, like, I mean, Rocky, I, I agree that it's like it gives you something to share, it gives you something you can both be passionate about and work towards and like, you know, by its nature, Rocky is a collaborative effort and being able to be collaborative with your partner is incredibly satisfying, right? I think that that's uh you know, the thing that, that Megan I love about it, right is that like we both get to share this thing and we both get to work towards putting it on and you know, making sure everybody's having a good time and like it's, it's very satisfying. Uh but I will agree with you on that one, John. It is also the only thing we ever fucking fight about. So I mean it makes all the other fights look tame in comparison when it's like no, you you have to put two cards in the prop bags, get out the spreadsheet. We gotta figure out if the budget allows for it. I'm sick of the budget said that. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Jacob? I'm I'm sorry. Audience. I am very sick today. If my voice sounds lackluster, I feel like it sounds lackluster and I'm not 100% here but I'm here. Got Jacob on a quiet day. Yeah, seriously. It like hurts to talk at this volume. I think Rocky has been great. Like Rocky has been how I have met every fucking, pretty much pretty much technically every sexual romantic encounter I've had in my, my two long term partners and it was a boon to the relationship. I think it was a thing that both of us shared in common and got to talk about how we wanted, you know, in private um which is fun. That's about all I have to say. Very nice. Very nice. So, I think the consensus is Rocky. Probably a positive. Who would have thought what a hot take? Probably a positive. We here at Rocky talkie, we'd like to wish Rena and Ali a very happy 18th anniversary. Keep doing what you're doing because it seems to be working beautifully. We'd also like to wish their cast a fun and Chill Halloween. And as always, if we've got any listeners who would like to weigh in on this convo, write to us and let us hear your thoughts. Just visit our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form. And with that, let's move on over to the question portion of the script. It's time to ask a question. Jacking it with Jacob. All right guys, we're, uh, we're not gonna do a big old historical deep dive this week. No, why not? Why not, Aaron? Uh Well, you know, you remember how many shows I said we have this, something's got to give, something's got to give and it turns out we don't have time to dig through a bunch of rocky books right now, but we did just have something happen at our show last night that I thought would be a very interesting topic. We haven't broached it too much on the show before. And um, well, here, let me, let me, uh let me play this clip. I think uh Frank can explain it a little bit better than I can. Uh, so we'll, we'll be back after this. It was one of those moments, but everything looks black. The chips are down, your back is against the wall. You're trapped. You panic. There's no way out and even if there was a way out, it would probably only be a one way ticket to the bottom of the bed. All right. So you may not have figured it out yet. That was uh Max Phillips, uh doing Frank back in the eighties. That's uh part of the uh lab scene, uh speech that is actually cut from the movie. Uh But yeah, the key takeaway there when your back is against the wall and oh boy, was our back against the wall last night at our show. It was a great show. The audience had a ton of fun. Uh We were there for it and like it, it went off with as many hits as you could possibly imagine because multiple times during the show last night, the done movie just went and stopped. Yes, it did. And it was awkward every time it did not get any less awkward than where it happened. The first time it happened, just the visual cut and the audio kept going, which I thought was absolutely great because speaking as someone who watched Rocky in a theater a few times before I started performing, I like, I feel like everyone in that theater say for a few special souls is just watching the movie on the screen and everyone on stage is kind of an afterthought. So I figure, I figure once the video stopped and it was just the audio, people were sort of forced to look at us for a good, like 20 20 minute stretch before the movie conked out yet again. And the audio cut too and we had to just pause and say sorry, uh give us a minute. So, uh yeah, the uh the origin of this one um love this venue, this like unforeseen thing. It was a dark and stormy night. Last night, there was having a bunch of kind of intermittent issues. And uh yeah, they were streaming the film uh off of one of the streaming services and um I think the network crapped out at some point or just, it lost its connection or something like that, but it happened probably a good four or five times starting in like right before Hot Patuti. And then it just kept happening throughout the rest of the film surprisingly did not stop during uh floor show where I'm going home, which was I, I was mad because I saw it, you know, stopping and starting and stopping and starting. And I was like, fine, you know what I'm since I'm there and I was just there watching the show, I was Trixie. So I did Trixie. It stopped at the very, very beginning of Trixie, but like it was before I did literally anything. So it didn't affect much, but like I went over and stood by the laptop that was running the movie in case if it paused, I could just immediately like, close it out and refresh it. But of course, when I was over there, it was fucking fine. Right? And I mean, so, you know, this happens, right? This happens, we all have those shows where some kind of technical problem goes catastrophically wrong. And it's just uh what are you gonna do in that situation? What's the cast gonna do? How are you gonna keep the vibe up, you know, all this kind of stuff. So that's what I wanted to kind of talk about today is um the times when the chips are down, right? And your back is against the wall and what do you do? What do you do? And I know that a lot of our listeners out there may not have been in a position where they're the one that has to take the initiative on this kind of thing, right? If something goes wrong, usually your cast leader is going to deal with it, right? If it's something that's like catastrophic, the movie stops playing, which is exactly what happened last night. I mean, the average person who's been on cast for, you know, a year or so is probably not the one who's gonna have to go deal with figuring out what the fuck to do with the venue, but you might find yourself in that position and I thought this would be a good opportunity to kind of talk through some of that and just what you do and how you keep a level head and, and all of that. So let's start off with a little bit of story time. John, what was the biggest catastrophe of a show for you personally? So let's start with something easy. Not like the whole show is going wrong. What was the worst show that went wrong for you? So a couple of years back Halloween season because it's always Halloween season when this shit happens, I was Trixie for a midnight show and I was Frank for the nine pm show. So like really chill really easy. You know, you go, you do Frank and then you do Trixie at midnight and then you just get to sit and chill and watch the rest of the show. Uh So I was Frank for the nine pm show and my partner Savannah was Frank for the midnight show and then Trixie for the nine PM show. So we like switched. It was really cute. Savannah went on did Trixie as Jack Kellington. It was a super cool Trixie. Really great. However, Savannah had had like really bad Chinese food or something earlier that day and right when they went on to Trixie, they got like severe food poisoning. Oh no. And spent the entire rest of the show dying in the bathroom of the Chelsea ST Napoli. I was that show. Yeah, I was Frank that show so I didn't really get to like help. Uh But when I came back after the show was over, while we were resetting to do the midnight show, Savannah was in no way, shape or form ready or available to perform as Frank for that midnight show. So I had to do Frank again for the midnight show. So I did Frank for the nine pm show and the midnight show which means that I was Frank from like eight pm to 2 30 in the morning. And the and it was just that, that was like the biggest shit show for me. Personally, I have never thankfully had an issue myself on stage like there's been things where it's like, oh no, I forgot a costume piece or oh no, I have to at the last second, do this one character or blah, blah, blah. But doing Frank back to back from 8 to 2 ami do not recommend to my worst enemy. And that's coming from somebody who like loves the spotlight on him, you know, like I'm, I'm a vain motherfucker. I will be the first person to admit it. But doing Frank for two shows back to back and being in that makeup and that costume for that long. Not fun, not fun at all. It's so hard to keep the energy up right? Like you go, you go through a whole arc of the first show, right? Of like, high energy and then I'm up and I'm down and all of this stuff and then like, you're just dirty and disgusting at the end of the show and you, you, you finish it and you're like, cool. Now I got to be sexy sweet tea Frank again. I hated it that I, I'm pretty sure I told Maggie after that I was like, I don't want to play Frank for like, like at least two or three months after that because it was just, it was overboard. Yeah, it, it, that's, that's, I mean, and, and what do you do? What do you do in that situation? You, you got to perform? There's no choice not to, you know. Uh Yeah, you just got to grin Barrett and try and hope the audience doesn't notice that you're on your second round. What about you, Jacob? What is the biggest catastrophe of a show for you personally? It's surprising. But I, maybe all my shows have just gone kind of and I haven't really had an issue. I, oh actually, oh, you know what, fuck. Um Last night at the, the show, the show that went wrong. So I got a good friend of mine. He's now on cast, Rob. I was smoking with him right before our show and I didn't smoke that much because you know, the show was about to happen. I was Eddie. So I felt like I had enough time before the show was starting. It was like, it was 30 minutes before the show was going to start. And then I have, you know, all that time before Patuti. I figured, you know, I, I know my tolerance. I know how weed works. Like I will be cool to the ground by the time I have to go on stage and holy shit, I don't know what specialty Rob brought. But it was incredible. I was joined out of my fucking mind for like three hours as I was leaving after the show, I was still a little fucking fucked up. And I, and I got worried, I was like very worried leading up to Patuti like make a man out of you and all that shit. I was like, shit. Am I, is this gonna be OK? No, no, this is gonna be fine. Like I, I can handle myself, right? Yeah, I'm totally Yeah. And I was like talking myself up and like Jacob, it's OK, you're gonna go out there and do all the thing. You usually do it, ok? And then I got out there and one, the movie conked out. So I went out there, I did my entrance. Um And then after I did my entrance before any singing happened, I didn't even get to hear the woo. It was the scariest thing because I was baked. So I, I was like, I did my entrance and I was like, ok, now here's gonna, is where the woo comes and I didn't hear the woo and I was like, fuck, am I so high? I can't hear anymore. And then no, the movie just stopped. So we stopped for a good 10, 15 minutes, maybe more. And then it started up again. I redid my entrance this time. It seemed like it was going, well, we started going through the whole Eddie routine. I did like the first verse and then the stuff with Columbia came up and I forgot it entirely. I was like, oh, yes. And here is where I will play the saxophone. Um Totally skipping over the interaction with Colombia. Thankfully, like 20 seconds into me playing the saxophone. The movie cut out again, which was such a relief. Like the movie cut out and I was talking to Lily Shout out Lily, you're great. Who was my Columbia? We were just shooting the shit just like, yeah. Oh Well, movie movie cut out high audience. Um And halfway through like like a few minutes through the cut, I would just leaned over to her and I was like, did I did I forget to interact with you. Did I skip straight to saxophone? She was like, yes, you did. Um Well, in, in your defense though, Jacob, it was also because somebody gave you the saxophone way too early and because, you know, baked out of your mind. You were like, oh this is the time that I do the saxophone. Oh no, no, no no John, you may think that. But what happened, what happened was I was on stage and in my head, I was like, OK saxophone, why am I not being past the saxophone? So I looked to Rain who I knew had the saxophone and I like urgently with my face and my hands and my eyes urgently. I was like saxophone, saxophone and she was confused and I was like, why are you confused? I need the saxophone now. So she ended up tossing it to me way too early. Um Yeah, movie cut out again and then I think it was, it was fine. Right? I went, I, then I performed and it didn't cut out a third time. Um But yeah, I got to do three entrances as Eddie which was quite an experience. I felt very stupid by the third one. I, I was like, man, I know I need to be hype and, and do this full force because the audience is like, because the movie cut out three times. But Jesus Christ, everyone's like must be laughing at me. Now, this is ridiculous. I can't just scream around the stage three times. That's stupid. Oh, man. Yeah. You know, I thought that the worst of the worst came for me last night during hosting and I was so wrong. Like, so we, we, we got people up to do a costume contest because they like to give away, you know, drink tickets and stuff at this venue. Um, so it brought, brought up people in costumes to, to do like orgasms for, you know, who's gonna win, uh, some, some, some drink tickets turns out every single person dressed in a, a, in a, in a rocky costume last night was also a virgin. So the interaction went like this. Hi, how you doing? What's your name? OK, cool. And I see that you are dressed as, oh Magenta, you're dressed as Magenta. OK. And uh how do you think Magenta would have an orgasm? I haven't seen the movie. OK. This is going well and I went down the line, every single one of them had never seen the film before. So I'm like, I get to the last one who's dressed as Frank and I'm like, how do you think Frank would have an orgasm? And she's like, I have no idea. And I'm like, really, it's in the movie, like at this point you just turn to the audience and you're like, these are your friends. This is your problem. It turned out really funny and like everybody liked it. But that was just like a moment for me where I was just like, OK, if this is the worst that happens, that, that, that was OK. Boy, was I wrong and I mean, it was probably the biggest catastrophe we've had for the cast, right? For the show as a whole in any of our shows since we've come back. I mean, the movie cuts out and what are you gonna do? Like I was standing over by the bar when this happened and I just put my head down and I was like, fuck, ok, they better fix it quick. And then I realized shit I was hosting tonight, it's actually my responsibility to go engage this audience while this is going wrong. Yeah, I was telling Aaron because I was tricky and I, I, you know, I'm a cast leader. So like I had initially thought that when it was freezing and like nothing was really happening that I was going to go up and, and do a thing. But then I was like, I am also dressed like a fucking popsicle right now. Nobody is going to take me seriously. Yeah. And I mean, we did the best thing that we could do. We called it an intermission. You know, I, I walked up there and said, all right guys, movie's taking a break, it's an intermission. Go get another drink, tip your bartenders, all the standard stuff and you just gotta, you gotta reset expectations and keep the energy up, right? Keeping the energy up is so hard, especially when you know something like that goes wrong and you just wanna, you want to engage the audience and you know, they know that something went wrong. So there's no point in pretending it, didn't, you just got to shrug, you gotta talk to them, you gotta, you know, do the stuff that keeps them interested while you sort out your shit. And then hopefully it, it, it comes back. Was that, was this the biggest catastrophe show like that that you've done John for the cast as a whole or was there? Is there another one that sticks out? Um, just aside from when I had to play Frank the two times in a row, uh, I, I don't really think we've ever had a show that was just like, collectively has gone around like that. Like, every once in a while I feel like we have like, and Eddie that comes down way too early, either time or like somebody misses a cue or completely misses a scene. I know that I've missed, uh, superheroes is Brad plenty of times. Um, or like, I haven't got my costume on in time for quick changes. But like, aside from like, just shit like that, maybe multiple happening per show, I think that that probably was the biggest shit show. Right? There's, there's, there's a line between what went bad for the cast and what went bad that the audience can tell. Right? Like we've had shows where like part way through driving scenes suddenly Janet cannot perform anymore. Right? And at that point, just find somebody in a white bra and call it a day. That's what we ended up doing and like it worked fine. I'm pretty sure they look similar enough. The audience couldn't even tell that we swapped Janet's part way through a show once the big Fresh Prince of Bel air vibes. Right? And like those, those are a little bit easier, right? Where it's just like, ok, figure it out. The audience is still sitting there. They don't know anything went wrong. You don't have to clue them in that anything went wrong. You know, you don't have to make a whole thing out of it. But when something goes wrong and they know, well, you got to acknowledge it, you gotta, you know, respond to it quickly and you gotta keep them up, you know, while they're doing it in my youth. I was a part of a youth theater ensemble called the, which is located in Manhattan. And my first show with them, our opening night, one of our cast members was like a little sick but he was like, well, but I can, I can perform. It's opening night, I'm not gonna like sit out just because I have like the cold, whatever. Um And as we went out to do bows, it was, oh my God. So we were like in the second group of people that went out to do bows. So there were a few people already on stage and then me and this kid and two other kids walked out to do bows and we get out to like where we're supposed to be on the stage. And this kid vomits right in the middle of stage. It was terrible. We have, we like, we all moved away a little bit because like vomits right there. It was very unfortunate. He ran off stage, his dad was there that night. So he got to go somewhere to get taken care of. It was all good and it was during the bow. So it didn't, it didn't like fuck over the show. But then a bunch of more people had to come out and bow around the vomit, which I thought was a little funny. Uh, I mean, at least it was at the end. Right. Yeah, exactly. We got to go home shortly after, uh, I, I directed a production of, uh, the complete works of William Shakespeare abridged a few years ago and on our tech night, the night before the show, one of my, one of the, the actors had a mental break on stage and it was, yeah, it was, it was horrifying, uh, was unable to perform. I had to because he like assaulted another cast member, like on stage. Oh, yikes. So I had to walk him to counseling and then had to recast the entire show to like for everybody to pick up hit that person's lines because it's the complete works of William Shakespeare, which is a show that's usually done by three people. I had a cast of like six or seven. But I had to split his role amongst the cast and we had less than 24 hours and it worked. They were able to pull it off that fucking God. But that, I think that that was like the scariest I've ever been in a theater, like in a, at least in a theater space where catastrophe was going to happen. And I had to figure out what to do regardless of it. Oh, yeah, I, I think my biggest like, performance catastrophe ever actually comes from like high school marching band where there was 11 night where we were doing a show, uh, at, at a college on like the football field and it was the night before like a competition and part way through, like, I don't know, the second or third song in the set, all of the sprinklers turn on, on this football field and the, the thing you do in marching band, right is like you do not let anything faze you. If you are not in danger, it is ok and you play through it. So we're just standing there at, you know, our in playing through the song while there's sprinklers blasting us all in the face, soaking our uniforms, soaking our, our instruments and a bunch of like the band, dads start running, running out onto the field and they just stand directly in front of the sprinklers so that they're getting blasted in the face and not, the band is getting blasted. So we come, we come off from this, this performance and it's just, it looks like there's all these, like, you know, band dads who are just soaked, like they just got out of a pool and everybody is like, well, shit, we have to be on a bus in eight hours to go to a competition. I guess we're all going to figure out how to quickly dry out some uniforms. That was a mess. That was probably the biggest performance mess I've ever, I've ever seen, I was about to say that sounds fantastic. I don't know, it was certainly one, there's video of it too, like somebody was recording on their V H s and like, yeah, you can, you can see when it starts, you just see a drum line, get a full face of water. It's real funny. Yeah, if you find that I'm gonna need that for reasons. But I mean, you know, this is, this is the kind of thing. It's not just Rocky, it's not just theater, it's, you know, any kind of performance things can go wrong and when they go wrong, you just have to figure out how best to accommodate it, make sure everybody's ok and try to keep going as well as you can, right? Like, I mean, you got the famous example, right? The the glitter incident from the original stage show, right where Raynard Burton cannot play Rocky because his member is currently not in a good shape because of some glitter. And what, what were they gonna do? There was a solution for it. They said, well, Colombia is no longer gonna be a character in this show. Little Nell is gonna play Rocky Magenta is gonna do all of Colombia's stuff like her lines and things she's supposed to do and we'll make it work. I mean, they ended up canceling the show anyway because it, you know, there was other stuff going wrong that night, but like you just gotta be creative, right? Yep. And then there was this one show just like to continue the conversation of like the stage show itself going wrong. There was uh a show that our friend Justin was in as Rocky Me, Aaron Meg. A bunch of people went up to the Rhode Island area to go see it and, and root for them. The Frank who was in that show forgot his lines, which is hysterical because I feel like anybody who understands the community around Rocky, literally everything that comes out of Frank's mouth is iconic, right? Um He just kind of like stood there after Dr Scott entered, stood there and everyone was waiting in anticipation. I'm sorry, it was there. I had to do that, but everyone was just way there and like, Doctor Scott and Frank are just staring at each other. Brad is just looking at Frank and everyone is just, it's like the Spiderman meme where they're all pointing at each other, but nobody is saying anything. And then there was somebody uh in thankfully thankfully because Rocky is a callback culture and people are allowed to talk during the show. Somebody in the audience went, wow, he looks pretty adaptable to me. And that was the line that Frank was supposed to say. And then the guy playing Frank was like, yes, he looks adaptable to me. and like, I cannot, first off, I cannot imagine for forgetting a fucking line for Dr Franken Furter, one of the most iconic broadway roles of all time. Uh let alone being like one of his like bigger singers in the show too. But you know, stage fright is a motherfucker for everybody, I guess. I mean, he broke so hard when, when, when, when the person screamed it out, he just, but he, he, he did what he should have done. He kept as Frank, he turned and was like bitchy at the audience like, well, fuck you, I know I did it wrong but fuck you, I'm Frank and just moved on with it and, and, and it was just funny. It was just funny. It, it turned a oh shit moment into a, ok, we're all here for a laugh like and I mean sometimes they shows can go catastrophically wrong but sometimes it it's not a big like, oh shit situation, right? Sometimes a show is just going flat, right? And we've all had those shows and I think this is actually AAA better tip for everybody out there. Kind of a more interesting discussion topic for, uh people are just in shows and when you can tell that a show is going flat, what do you do? What do you do when you, you think the audience isn't quite getting into it or that like everything's not landing. What do you do, John? Uh So if I feel as though the audience is not being very well receptive to like my character or just any of the characters at all, I kind of go really, really, really hard on the audience interaction. So like if I'm on stage and the audience is just not good, they're not cheering, they're not doing callbacks, they're not doing anything like that. I will force myself to break character multiple times and I'll do callbacks from stage. Uh As long as I'm not like the centerpiece, like you would never catch me doing callbacks during sort of Dan as Rocky, you know. Right. But like if it's like, I'm going home and I'm Dr Scott Brad Janet or Rocky, and I can tell that the audience is like very kind of confused as to what's happening, you know, that kind of shit. I will, I'll sit there and do them having people stand up and sit down that kind of shit. If I see that there's somebody in the, you know, in the front row who is just not really enjoying themselves. And I'm playing R raff, I'll use them as the transducer, uh, you know, to, just to get them a little bit more into the space of what this show is and what the show is about. That's kind of like where, where I lie and I think more often than not, it works. Yeah. I think that, you know, those are the cases where, like, you know, the audience isn't being interactive and receptive. Well, at that point you can try anything. You know, the, the, the, the rules are now suggestions, right. What about you, Jacob? What about me? Indeed. Um Oh God. Yeah, if they're not into it, I just bring out the scooter. Um, you know, I have to drop it at the beginning of a but halfway through, if they're not clapping their hands, I just bring the scooter around through the rows and threaten various people with it. Um It's, it's quite meaty and, and metal so people shy away and start their cliv clapping. Oh, no, don't, don't hit me with the scooter. Right? I, I'm sorry, that's what it sounds like. Oh, yeah, we had a moment like that last night where, I don't know, probably the fourth or fifth time that the movie had stopped. I've been standing on stage. It's during freezing scene. I'm doing Riff and Keely is doing Magenta and we're just standing on stage, it freezes and we're just like, I've already done the, like the third intermission joke. Like, like I, there's no more, like, actively talking to him. It's just the audience knows that we need to get it back on track. What do I do? Keeley's just like, well, we can dance and I'm like, absolutely. So we just slow waltz on stage for a good, like, two minutes to no music to nothing. Just like, here's something to watch guys. I don't know, just try and keep up with us. Like there was AAA show for me recently where I had, I was playing Janet and I uh I had texted meg earlier in the day and was like, hey, don't forget your Janet stuff for me and then she forgot her Janet stuff for me. So we had to send one of our cast members, Marty back to her apartment to fetch it, which meant that I had to host for a very prolonged period of time. And it was just, it was just a very strange experience because I haven't hosted for that long since pre-covid. I had to host. I think somebody, one of the newbies clocked me at like 37 minutes of hosting, which was, that was, that was unheard of. I mean, like that was part of the course back in the day for N Y C. But like we, we host like 10, 15 minutes Max now. So having to go for over double, that was uh nightmarish but honestly, you just have to keep going and make it seem like you meant to do that. Yeah. You pulled out all the deep cuts, like every single joke, every applause break, every single thing. And I just went, I forgot how, like, well, this all structured together back in the day when it was all that. Like, there was all the points for it and everything was there. It's, it's just slow, you know, but when you're stone for time you need slow. Yeah, exactly. And it worked. There's always haters, especially during the Halloween season. You know, you always get people that don't understand the vibe of the show, you know. And apparently, uh because I, I, I was talking to one of the newbies after the show and apparently one of them came up to our lighting person Chloe and they were like, is the movie gonna start yet? And Chloe was like, yeah, it's, it's gonna start soon and they were like, good because the vibes are kind of weird. And now we quote that like me and all the new kids, we will quote that to each other all the time. Quoted that to me like three times so far. Yeah, the vibe, the vibes. They're kind of weird. And it's like, honey, if you think the vibes are weird now, I cannot tell you how the vibes are going to be when the actual performance starts because it's way fucking worse than this my friend, she stayed throughout the whole show though from what I, from what I gathered. Well, that's good. But it's like the same idea of, like, when people leave the show because they didn't think that people would be yelling, you know, or like, why are there people, like, prancing around the front? I can't see the movie. Right. When there's nothing to help for those people who came in with the wrong expectations. right? They just need to leave or just be miserable. That's fine too, but just don't make it everyone else's problem. And, you know, from a cast perspective, you set the expectations as well as you can. But some people just, you know, aren't, aren't there for it. You know, not every show is going to run perfectly, do the best you can and minimize the problems for the audience. Right? I mean, that's what it, that's what it breaks down to and, and actually this might be the best piece of advice that we give in this entire episode. Don't try to figure out what went wrong and how you could have fixed it right then. Right? Don't, don't have a whole breakdown about who did what and why is it so bad? You just got to solve the problem and save the like, what fucked up and how do we fix that for after the show? Yeah, I actually just had this conversation with a bunch of the newbies who came over to learn uh Rocky recently, I taught a bunch of them, Rocky's track and I had noticed that one of them I was looking at like my TV screen a lot and I had to stop and I was like, stop looking at the screen. So if you look at the screen, the, the very little immersion that you are creating while being a shadow caster is ruined because if you look at the screen, it looks like you don't know what you're doing. I know that you're using it as a crutch because you don't want to be wrong. But if you're going to be wrong, do it proudly do it powerfully. If you are standing in the wrong spot and you look up at the screen and see that you're in like the wrong location. Oh Well, stay there. Do not switch your shit like that. Unless you're like literally in the way of somebody, then sure move. But like unless you are in the way of somebody, you are somewhere, the cast will, will mold around, you will mold around your misgiving. No, no cast member was going to stop the stage. The show would be like you're supposed to be over. They're not gonna do that. So just go, just do it because chances are the audience is not going to fucking know and the people that are in the cast that know Rocky probably also aren't going to know because every cast has different blocking. Don't worry about it, keep going. And then it is up to people who are tasked with as leadership to let you know, you know, hey, this is something that you did. Uh It is done this way, you know, just make that as a mental note for next time. I was actually at the show last night to do notes and I had a few, but then when the movie start started stopping and starting, I was like, well, I can't get people notes now because everyone is so flustered about the movie stopping and starting that everyone is like switching hands and being on the wrong side of people. I'm like, I'm just gonna throw this note section out and we'll do this at another show. Jacob's Small Note don't do the intro a hoe three times. But for real, like if you are a performer and you are somebody who like, looks at the screen and you're like, you're so worried about being wrong, just be wrong. It's OK. This is an experimental community theater program. You are not on Broadway, we are not kicking you off stage because you were standing on the wrong side of Janet during there's a light like, or maybe maybe other casts do that and if they do, you're fucking wrong. Don't do that. Yeah. I mean, it's, and it really comes down to like, in the moment is not the time to try to, like, be introspective and to try to like figure, no, you're there to put on a show and it, it, it's gonna keep going, the train is gonna keep coming down the track. Either way you can either be hanging on to it or you can be running behind it trying to figure out why it didn't stop at the last station. Like there's, there's no way and there is a time and a place for that kind of, you know, retrospective. I mean, this is very common in theater, right? Like a show happens and then afterwards your stage manager, your director, whoever is gonna give you notes, you're gonna go over, you know, all of the things that went wrong. You're gonna figure out how to make sure that they don't happen again. But you don't need to be freaking out about that during the show, right? Because there's nothing you can do to fix the next show during this show. This show is the one that's got a problem going on right now, just barrel through it, you know, and that's our show. We want to thank nobody. Not a single person. Yeah. Fuck all of you. Yeah. And as always, we'd like to thank our writer Jacob who did nothing this week and our editor Aaron from Tennessee who does all the work every week. We appreciate you so much. I appreciate that. I'm still in the credits for this because it has been, it has been like half a year plus since I have wrote written for this show but, uh, I, I appreciate the shout out every week and speaking of catastrophes, if anyone has a question, they'd like us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or I see we've never fixed that or some community news that you'd like us to talk about. See what I did. There was wrong. See, I stopped instead of barreling through it. That was wrong of me. Yeah, I have the magic of production. So it doesn't matter if we do that this time. If anyone has a question, they'd like us to answer on air for our ask a question segment or some community news. They'd like us to talk about. Maybe just a cool story to share with the community or a really, really terrible experience. You remember, come on, send it in. We'd love to include it in the show. Just go to our website. That's rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out the contact form to tell us all about it. Hey, Aaron. Yes, John, why can't you use beef stew as a computer password? I don't know why can't you use beef stew as a computer password? Because it's not stroke enough. And if you want even more Rocky Talk, you can know it. Not to goddamn it. 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 talkie content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok, all at Rocky Talkie Podcast. We'll see you next week. Bye. I see you. For example, the copy, what the, what's S F D F science fiction double features.