A backstage look at what makes theater so frightening, especially when it's Rocky Horrifying. Butterflies play ping-pong in thespian stomachs hour after hour on this cool mid-October night. Eager crowds gather on the front steps of the massive stone theater to wait for the curtains to rise on the Hippodrome State Theatre's production of "The Rocky Horror Show."
As patrons find their seats, a sleazy-looking actor in a baby blue polyester suit mingles with the audience, telling people they're in the hot spot tonight. As he puts his arm around one man, you can see beads of sweat forming on top of the man's bald head.
Backstage, the cast and crew are starting to sweat a little, too. Opening night is always nerve-wracking, but as any actor would testify, the applause at the end of a successful show is more than enough compensation for a case of pre-show jitters.
Cut! Let's take a time warp back to rehearsals and find out why many people find such hard work so rewarding.
Scene: A small, empty room with dirty wooden floors, knick-knacks stacked on boxes, crumpled papers and scattered food containers may not sound cozy and inviting. But for the cast and crew of "Rocky Horror," it's home.
After a few blaring bars of rock 'n' roll, actors fill the room in a psychedelic Rogers and Hammerstein-style dream ballet. Dancers with a rainbow of multi-colored hair perform pelvic thrusts in time with the pounding beat of the piano and crawled across the floor like hungry predatory cats.
"After three days, we had staged a great portion of the show," says Mark Chambers, who plays Dr. Frank N. Furter. "You get used to working quickly."
Due to a lack of government funding for theater, most professional rehearsals usually last only three weeks. There's just not enough money to do more, director Lauren Caldwell says. If she could have it her way, rehearsals would last a couple of months.
But because they don't, being an actor means working hard and working fast. By the end of the fast-paced "Time Warp," the actors are sweaty and tired, dying for a breath of cool air and a long drink of water to soothe their throats after so much loud singing. But there's no time for a break. They have to keep moving. Opening night is just a week away.
And...action! Moving right into "Sweet Transvestite," Chambers prances around the room in black and gold stiletto heels and a stylish cape. Caldwell scribbles gibberish in her small leather notebook the whole time.
After a quick break, the performers brush up on their choreography before cast call at 6 p.m., their first onstage run after two weeks of rehearsals. Rehearsing onstage for the first time usually requires some adjustments to the dance numbers.
Before the actors are released, Douglas Maxwell, musical director, gives them a little pep talk.
"You have to be in tune with each other," he says. "If it doesn't come together in this room, it doesn't come together."
Caldwell thrives on this stress and excitement, especially the thrill that comes from a rock 'n' roll show.
"I always wanted to be a rock 'n' roll singer," she says while straddling a chair in a hallway just outside the rehearsal room, a cigarette and a shock of disheveled blonde hair tucked behind her ear. Caldwell looks the part of a rock diva in her yellow-tinted black-rimmed glasses, black long-sleeved shirt, black bandanna tied around her neck, black jeans and black cowboy boots.
So why is this aspiring rocker directing instead?
"I love big-cast shows," she says. "This is an old story with a fresh look and a different setting. It's important to tell in 1998."
"Rocky Horror" is so important to her that work actually began back in June. She even made trips to New York to audition actors and bring them here for the show. Some of the roles, such as Dr. Frank N. Furter, were pre-cast because Chambers has played the role many times before. However, some of the cast is comprised of UF theater students, which is unusual for the Hippodrome. The theater usually casts only professional Equity actors, but Caldwell made exceptions for some theater majors who fit the roles perfectly. The experience of working in a professional theater has apparently been a good one for these students.
Even though college and professional theater are two entirely different worlds, dramatic education is still necessary. Caldwell recommends that aspiring actors get good training for technique and business sense.
"Acting is like running your own business," she says. "You have to develop your career. Marketing is important. And once you get a job and sign that paper, don't ever lose your energy. Acting is like marriage. You can't take it for granted."
Jim Morgan, the set designer for "Rocky Horror," has taken that advice to heart. He is a UF theater graduate who runs his own theater in New York but often comes to Gainesville to work on sets for Hippodrome shows. He says it's mostly an excuse to take a vacation to Florida. He knows the people who first started the Hippodrome, and he's been doing shows for them ever since.
"You learn something on every set," he says. "This set is simple. It's the wackiness of the actors that makes the show, not a lot of special effects."
A week goes by. The paint is dry. The pillars are in their proper place. A peach and purple movie house stands tall within the theater. Rehearsals are over, and now it's time to show off the final product.
The lights dim, and the man in the baby blue polyester suit appears in the center of the stage. The music from the balcony blasts with the brightness of a single, powerful beam of light. Then the entire cast floods out onto the floor for the opening number. The actors sing and dance, swinging their shiny golden hair and wearing costumes that look like a combination of movie usher and ragged soldier: fishnet stockings, black bustiers, stiletto heels and garters.
A couple of hours later, the blinding laser lights fade, and the thunderous applause begins. As the cast takes a bow, the music starts up again, and the audience joins the cast in "Time Warp." Inhibitions disappear, and even the sweating bald man is now attempting a pelvic thrust.
In the opening scenes of the show, Janet and Brad, two of the leading roles, appear in conservative business suits that reflect their personalities. Halfway through the show they discover the old theater, and by the time the final curtain falls, the couple leaves in their underwear.
It's amazing how much a theater audience has in common with Janet and Brad. They enter a little uptight, unsure of what will happen in the next few hours, and leave stripped down to their souls, free from inhibitions and transported into a new world. The cast's energy beams out from the stage like the laser lights that illuminate them and brightens the heart of everyone in the audience. Even the real-world Janets and Brads leave wondering what they ever feared. After all, what's so scary about a time warp and a sweet transvestite named after a hot dog?
If live theater sounds like something you'd like to try, if you have a case of stage fright and want to find a cure or if you just want to support your local theater by seeing some shows, here is a listing of Gainesville's theaters. They need your support, and they'd love to see some fresh faces. There is a wide array of local theater from black box productions to large touring shows. So show your love for the theater, and give one of these numbers a call:
Acrosstown Repertory Theatre
Gainesville Community Playhouse
Hippodrome State Theatre
Oaks Mall Box Office
Center for the Performing Arts
University of Florida Theatre Department
Jessica Taylor
Photos by Michael Tercha
To the inexperienced eye, a rehearsal such as this appears to be utter chaos. But the cast knows that the "chaos" is carefully choreographed. It has to be - rehearsals are only a few weeks long.
"School rehearsals are usually longer, about a month, instead of two to three weeks," says LaVon Fisher, a UF theater student. "Here we're expected to walk through it on our own. I wish educational theater was the same."
At first, Morgan and Caldwell saw the show taking place in a castle, but after some brainstorming they came up with an old movie theater as the set. Although huge pillars stand in the aisles and welders are still putting together a banister for the balcony, Morgan describes the set as if it's in the final production stage. Doors will lead into the audience, and the band will play from an upper level. The peach and purple-painted sets need a few more coats of paint. Popcorn boxes will be strewn here and there, and old movie reels will give the added effect of a picture show. The set was built in a few weeks but has to be assembled on stage in one week. Morgan wanders the stage in old paint-splotched shorts, swiping at the floor with a brush at the end of a broomstick in an effort to get the paint to dry before the actors arrive in an hour.
The spectacle both appalls and entertains the audience. Some of the younger crowd laugh out loud and sing along, while some of the older viewers still look a bit unsure. However, by the end of "Time Warp," the actors seem to have won over the audience, and everyone is swept into the world of Dr. Frank N. Furter.
619 S Main St.
375-1321
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