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163-414: The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien . A humorous tribute to various B movies associated with the science fiction and horror genres from the 1930s to the early 1960s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, Rocky,

326-521: A queen , he should speak like the Queen of the United Kingdom , extravagantly posh, Patricia Quinn , Nell Campbell (billed as Little Nell), Julie Covington , Christopher Malcolm (who would subsequently be the originator of the revival and tours in the 1990s) and O'Brien, with each performing in an all-out camp style. It was a creative triumph and a critical and commercial success. A reviewer at

489-415: A "floor show". Under Frank's influence, Columbia, Rocky, Brad, and Janet perform song and dance routines while clad in lingerie ( "Rose Tint My World (Floor Show)" ). After, Frank entices them to lose all inhibition and give in to their natural carnal instincts, resulting in everyone beginning to engage in orgiastic sex ("Don't Dream It – Be It") before Frank leads them into the rousing concluding number of

652-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from

815-403: A Man"). A Coca-Cola freezer in the laboratory opens to reveal Frank and Columbia's former lover, Eddie, a biker covered in surgical scars, who has been rendered a (slightly more) brain-damaged zombie, intent on rescuing Columbia, and escaping the castle while successfully causing large amounts of damage to Frank's laboratory, exhibiting signs of partially returning memory of the way he lived life in

978-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of

1141-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of

1304-521: A derelict cinema, introduces tonight's "film" in a song (" Science Fiction/Double Feature "), with masked Phantoms providing the backing vocals. After attending the wedding of his best friend since high school (Ralph Hapschatt, now married to Janet Weiss' friend Betty Munroe), Brad Majors confesses his love to Janet Weiss (" Dammit Janet ") and the two become engaged. The Narrator appears and explains that Brad and Janet are leaving Denton to visit Dr. Everett Scott, their former science tutor, while driving into

1467-516: A duet with O'Brien singing "I'm Going Home" as a bonus video. In March 2009, the show returned with a new UK tour starting in the autumn. With Christopher Luscombe returning as the director, the tour was a revival of the 2006–2007 production with some adjustments to the direction, lighting, choreography, costumes and musical arrangements. The tour opened on 17 September 2009 at the New Wimbledon Theatre and closed on 4 December 2010 at

1630-520: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of

1793-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by

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1956-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On

2119-478: A fusion of directorial integrity and razzle-dazzle of colour and movement, opened on 22 July 1981 at Civic Theatre, Wagga Wagga . The cast included Terry O'Connell as Frank-N-Furter (reprising his role from the 1978 production), Annie Stanford as Janet, Paul Minifie as The Narrator, Bob Baines (another former member of the 1978 production) as Riff Raff, and Wayne Pygram as Rocky Horror. Wilton Morley's new production of The Rocky Horror Show opened 6 October 1981 at

2282-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at

2445-812: A month-long run at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre . After its Haymarket run followed a major national tour to Wolverhampton, Norwich, Leeds, Bristol, Newcastle, Birmingham, Brighton, York, Lincoln, Southsea, Oxford, and ending at Cork, Ireland in December 1979. The lead part of Frank-N-Furter was played by Daniel Abineri . Others in the cast included Claire Lewis as Magenta/Usherette, Amanda Redman as Janet Weiss, Terence Hillyer as Brad Majors, Nicholas Courtney as Narrator, Brett Forrest as Riff Raff, Dee Robillard as Columbia, Gary Martin as Rocky, Trevor Byfield as Eddie/Dr. Scott, Nicola Blackman, Martyn Boydon, Michael Kirk and Sarah Payne . At

2608-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It

2771-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from

2934-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from

3097-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond

3260-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked

3423-480: A new cast and starred David James as Frank. The opening night cast included Roslyn Roseman as Trixie/Usherette/Magenta, Needa Greene as Janet, Robert Reynolds as Brad, Richard Gee as the Narrator, Buddy King as Riff Raff, Paula Desmond as Columbia, Bob Dulaney as Rocky, and Emil Borelli as Eddie/Dr Scott, with back-up vocals by Vikki D'Orazi, William J. Tacke, and Kelly St. John. The Rocky Horror Show transferred to

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3586-464: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of

3749-465: A person's "contra-sexual" (transgender) feelings and fetishistic behavior, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex. The use of the term travesti meaning cross-dresser was already common in French in the early 19th century, from where it was imported into Portuguese , with the same meaning. Today, the term transvestite is commonly considered outdated and derogatory, with

3912-665: A public vehicle for the film version. It was unsuccessful and closed after 45 performances. The cast was identical to that of the Roxy cast but with O'Brien in place of Scott as Riff-Raff. The third U.S. production opened at the Montgomery Playhouse in San Francisco on 3 February 1976 and played 103 performances, closing on 30 May. The San Francisco production was directed by A. Michael Amarino, with musical direction and arrangements by Michael Reno . The production had

4075-494: A rainstorm. During the trip, their car has a flat tire and they are forced to walk through the rain to seek a telephone in an old castle (" Over at the Frankenstein Place "). The Narrator explains that Brad and Janet are feeling "apprehensive and uneasy", but must accept any help that they are offered. As Brad and Janet arrive, Riff Raff, the hunchbacked handyman and live-in butler, greets them, and his sister Magenta,

4238-521: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances

4401-552: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with

4564-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during

4727-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting

4890-546: A sort of Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man complete "with blond hair and a tan". The show was produced and directed by Jim Sharman . The original London production of the musical was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs) on 19 June 1973 (after two previews on 16 and 18 June 1973). It later moved to several other locations in London and closed on 13 September 1980. The show ran for

5053-789: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on

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5216-803: A total of 2,960 performances in London and won the 1973 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical. Songs in the musical include " Time Warp " and " Sweet Transvestite " (co-written by O'Brien and Richard Hartley ), while the costumes were designed by Sue Blane . Its 1974 debut in the US in Los Angeles had a successful nine-month run, but its 1975 Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre lasted only three previews and forty-five showings, despite earning one Tony nomination and three Drama Desk nominations. Various international productions have since spanned across six continents as well as West End and Broadway revivals and eight UK tours. In 1991 it

5379-461: A variety of people who would now be considered transgender . The term transvestite is now considered outdated and derogatory, and has been replaced with the more neutral word cross-dresser . Though the term was coined as late as the 1910s by Magnus Hirschfeld , the phenomenon is not new. It was referred to in the Hebrew Bible. Being part of the homosexual movement of Weimar Germany in

5542-427: A year-long UK tour to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary. Christopher Luscombe has returned to direct the production, which stars Oliver Thornton as Frank-N-Furter, Ben Forster (winner of ITV1 series Superstar ) as Brad Majors until February 2013, Roxanne Pallett (of Emmerdale ) as Janet Weiss until May 2013 and Rhydian Roberts (of The X Factor ) as Rocky until March 2013. Unlike recent productions,

5705-417: Is Frank in disguise. Frank promises not to tell Janet, but as they resume, Riff Raff interrupts on the television monitor with the message that Rocky has escaped. Janet searches for Brad in the laboratory and discovers Rocky hiding there. Checking the television monitor, Janet sees Brad in bed with Frank and seduces Rocky (" Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me "). While searching the television monitor for Rocky,

5868-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in

6031-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only

6194-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of

6357-451: Is unmoved and guns down Columbia, Frank, and Rocky before ordering Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott to leave. As the trio evacuates the castle, Riff Raff and Magenta express their excitement to return to their world and do the "Time Warp" again with their fellow Transylvanians ("Spaceship"). Brad and Janet watch as the castle blasts off into outer space, confused about the implications of their sexual escapades ("Super Heroes"). To conclude his tale,

6520-674: The FBI . Dr Scott assures him that he has come in search of Eddie, who is revealed to be his nephew ("Eddie's Teddy"). Frank displays Eddie's corpse to the group and then uses a device to electronically restrain the three visitors and a rebellious Rocky to the floor ("Planet Schmanet Janet"); the inhabitants of the castle are revealed to be space aliens led by Frank, who abandoned their original mission in order to engage in kinky sex with Earthlings and work on Rocky. Magenta insists that they return to their home planet now that they have been found out; Frank refuses and, instead, declares his intentions to put on

6683-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music

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6846-625: The Theatre Royal, Sydney . The Sydney revival show toured successfully to Melbourne, Rockhampton, Townsville, Mount Isa, Canberra, Newcastle, Hobart, Launceston, Perth, Adelaide, and closed in Brisbane in October 1982. David Toguri (who had previously done the choreography for the 1975 film adaptation of the musical ) directed and choreographed the revival show. The cast featured Daniel Abineri as Frank-N-Furter, who had previously played

7009-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in

7172-460: The light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond

7335-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over

7498-399: The revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of

7661-543: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives

7824-579: The "production has been performed in 20 different languages" and been "seen by 30 million people globally". As an out-of-work actor in London in the early 1970s, Richard O'Brien wrote The Rocky Horror Show to keep himself busy on winter evenings. Since his youth, he had developed a passion for science fiction and B horror movies ; he wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humour of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle films, and fifties rock and roll into The Rocky Horror Show . A major theme running throughout

7987-622: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed

8150-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within

8313-451: The 1960s. It was one of the first popular musicals to depict fluid sexuality during a time of division between generations and a lack of sexual difference acceptance. Like the film adaptation, the musical is noted for a long-running tradition of audience participation through call-back lines and attending dressed up as characters from the show. On the 50th anniversary of the musical in 2023, BBC News states that since debuting in London in 1973

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8476-647: The 1973 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. When Richard O'Brien played Riff Raff in the original Broadway production of Rocky Horror in 1975 Robert Longden took over the role in London. The show's run at the King's Road Theatre ended on 31 March 1979; it then transferred to the Comedy Theatre (now the Harold Pinter Theatre ) in the West End to begin performances on 6 April 1979. At

8639-555: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by

8802-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in

8965-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during

9128-592: The 820-seat Comedy Theatre on Panton Street in the West End , running from 6 April 1979 until 13 September 1980, closing the play's initial run of 2,960 performances. After occasional productions in the early 1980s, the play was revived for the Theatre Royal, Hanley tour in 1984 and still is performed regularly in the UK. On Wednesday 8 August 1979 The Haymarket Production of The Rocky Horror Show , presented in association with Cameron Mackintosh and Michael White , began

9291-452: The 90's and into the 00's it evolved and emerged as the behemoth touring show that it is thanks to the dedication of Christopher Malcolm who also directed several productions in the UK, Germany, South Africa and Buenos Aires amongst others. Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Show completed its 2006–2007 tour on 14 July 2007 in Woking, Surrey after touring for almost eighteen months. The tour

9454-551: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to

9617-677: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create

9780-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and

9943-1046: The Classic Cinema and King's Road Theatre (Formerly the Essoldo Cinema), the following songs were added: "I Can Make You a Man", a reprise of the same and "Eddie's Teddy". The Rocky Horror Show has toured the United Kingdom regularly since the 1990–91 West End revival at the Piccadilly Theatre in productions produced by Christopher Malcolm 's, Richard O'Brien 's and Howard Panter 's Rocky Horror Company . Notable celebrities have been cast including Daniel Abineri , Peter Blake , Tim McInnerny , Anthony Head , Robin Cousins , Jason Donovan and Jonathan Wilkes as Frank-N-Furter, Gina Bellman as Janet Weiss, Edward Tudor-Pole as Riff Raff and TV's Craig Ferguson and Adrian Edmondson as Brad Majors, Kate O’Sullivan as Magenta/Usherette. Throughout

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10106-756: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In

10269-586: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of

10432-583: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on

10595-590: The Melbourne production. Staged by Roland Rocchiccioli, the Adelaide production – which was a transfer of Jim Sharman's original Sydney and Melbourne productions, and adapted for the new theatre, was not a success, and closed after only two months. As Rocchiccioli said on ABC Television in Adelaide , talking with Clive Hale : "It is the same Jim Sharman production as Melbourne. It is Brian Thomson's design, except

10758-560: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of

10921-415: The Narrator says "and crawling on the planet's face, insects called the human race, lost in time, and lost in space – and meaning." As the show ends, The Usherette returns to recount the night's events ("Science Fiction/Double Feature (Reprise)"). Lou Adler had made millions with risky ventures such as Monterey Pop . His record label, Ode Records , was becoming known for harvesting experimental talent. In

11084-417: The Narrator. Paul Jabara played Dr. Frank-N-Furter when Curry left to film the movie. The show played to a full house and a deal was made with 20th Century Fox for a film. Fox executive Gordon Stulberg saw the show at the Roxy and agreed to invest $ 1 million in the film project. Adler's attempt to turn his club into a playhouse was successful. Meat Loaf remembered different celebrities who would come to

11247-612: The Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to

11410-560: The Playhouse featured actors Stephen Fry , Anthony Head , Mel Giedroyc , Adrian Edmondson and former Spice Girl Emma Bunton sharing the role of Narrator. A UK-wide tour followed the London production. In 1978, The Rocky Horror Show received its first regional production of Australia. Under the direction of Terry O'Connell and Les Winspear, the production was staged by the Riverina Trucking Company (RTC) in

11573-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from

11736-665: The Rocky Horror Show has not been critically applauded in Australia. The show closed after two months, after running from 12 August to October 1977. In early 1975, Adler closed the show at the Roxy Theatre after a ten-month run. This gave actors time to return to the UK for the film version's shooting. Adler planned to open on Broadway just before the film's release. It was anticipated that this production would be as successful as Jesus Christ Superstar and serve as

11899-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During

12062-463: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from

12225-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from

12388-584: The UK production in Seoul , South Korea with a new cast of American, Australian and New Zealander actors and local celebrities as the Narrator. The production played from August until October 2010 before a five-week New Zealand tour in November and December with Richard O'Brien making a rare appearance as the Narrator. On 3 May 2006, a benefit concert version of the musical to raise money for Amnesty International . Entitled The Rocky Horror Tribute Show , it

12551-477: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of

12714-430: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in

12877-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as

13040-455: The beginning, a first transvestite movement of its own started to form since the mid-1920s, resulting in founding first organizations and the first transvestite magazine, Das 3. Geschlecht . The rise of National Socialism stopped this movement from 1933 onwards. Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word transvestite (from Latin trans- , "across, over" and vestitus , "dressed") in his 1910 book Die Transvestiten ( Transvestites ) to refer to

13203-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that

13366-458: The city of Wagga Wagga , where it played for a three-week run. The cast featured Terry O'Connell as Frank-N-Furter, Bob Baines as Narrator, Kim Hillas as Usherette, Lynne Erskine as Janet Weiss, Toby Prentice as Brad Majors, Myles O'Meara as Riff Raff, Janette Crowe as Magenta, Elaine Mangan as Columbia, Les Winspear as Rocky Horror, and Ken Moffat as Eddie/Dr. Scott. In 1981, director Peter Barclay's new interpretation of RTC production, marked by

13529-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to

13692-508: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by

13855-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by

14018-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held

14181-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved

14344-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as

14507-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and

14670-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict

14833-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down

14996-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite

15159-439: The first reported sexual reassignment surgery . Hirschfeld's transvestites therefore were, in today's terms, not only transvestites, but a variety of people from the transgender spectrum. Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often associated with transvestism. In more recent terminology, this is sometimes called transvestic fetishism . Hirschfeld also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of

15322-457: The floor show ("Wild and Untamed Thing"). The show comes to an abrupt end when Riff Raff and Magenta enter, wearing spacesuits and carrying ray guns . Riff Raff declares that he is usurping Frank's authority and taking them all back to their home planet ("Transit Beam"). Frank makes a final plea for sympathy from Riff Raff, trying to make him understand his desire to spend the rest of his life having sex with Earthlings (" I'm Going Home "). Riff Raff

15485-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need

15648-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in

15811-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of

15974-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about

16137-428: The laboratory, where Frank-N-Furter gives them laboratory coats to wear. Frank announces that he has discovered the secret to life itself. He unveils his creation, a blond, well-built man named Rocky, who is brought to life. As his bandages are removed, Rocky worries about his predicament ("The Sword of Damocles"). Frank admires Rocky's physique by singing a tribute to muscle builders ("Charles Atlas Song"/"I Can Make You

16300-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on

16463-632: The late winter of 1973, Adler was in London and attended a performance of the show with Britt Ekland . Acting on impulse and seeing a hit, he met backstage with producers and within 36 hours had secured the American theatrical rights. The show premiered at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles on 24 March 1974, running for nine months. The cast was all new except for Tim Curry. The rest of the cast consisted of Abigail Haness as Janet, Bill Miller as Brad, Bruce Scott as Riff-Raff, Jamie Donnelly as Magenta/Trixie, Boni Enten as Columbia, Meat Loaf as Eddie/Dr. Scott, Kim Milford as Rocky Horror, and Graham Jarvis as

16626-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,

16789-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming

16952-535: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,

17115-651: The maid, appears. Riff Raff, Magenta and Columbia (a groupie) speak briefly of an unlucky delivery boy named Eddie who fell victim to unfortunate circumstances because he botched a delivery, before performing the show's signature dance number (" Time Warp "). Brad and Janet try to leave at this point, but are stopped when Dr Frank-N-Furter, a pansexual , cross-dressing mad scientist , arrives. He introduces himself as "a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania" and invites Brad and Janet up to his laboratory (" Sweet Transvestite "). As he goes up, Brad and Janet are stripped to their underwear to dry off. Brad and Janet enter

17278-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of

17441-585: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see

17604-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as

17767-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:

17930-516: The musical is transvestism , which according to O'Brien was not originally meant to be as prominent as it ended up being. He conceived and wrote the play set against the backdrop of the glam era that had manifested itself throughout British popular culture in the early 1970s; he has stated " glam rock allowed me to be myself more", allowing his concept to come into being. O'Brien took a small amount of his unfinished Rocky Horror to Australian director Jim Sharman , who decided he wanted to direct it at

18093-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:

18256-469: The new venue, Rocky Horror required some restaging, for the Comedy was the first theatre at which the musical had played that possessed a traditional proscenium arch stage. For the first time, the musical was also broken into two acts with an interval. It finished its run there on 13 September 1980 in what was its 2,960th performance in London. The Usherette, sometimes referred to as "Trixie", who works in

18419-558: The newly opened Aylesbury Waterside Theatre . The first leg of the tour ran from September 2009 to July 2010 with a short break over the Christmas period. David Bedella reprised his role as Frank. The second leg of the tour began on 1 September 2010 at the New Victoria Theatre , Woking with several changes to the cast. During the UK tour's summer break director Christopher Luscombe and the show's creative team recreated

18582-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as

18745-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan

18908-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act

19071-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of

19234-503: The past (" Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul "). Frank panics, forces Eddie back into the freezer and hacks him to death (his weapon of choice typically being a pick axe or chainsaw). Frank tells Rocky — the recipient of the other half of Eddie's brain — that he prefers him over Eddie ("Charles Atlas Song (Reprise)"/"I Can Make You a Man (Reprise)"), as although he and Eddie had a strong mental relationship, he had no muscle, and therefore, had to go. Brad and Janet, somewhat flustered after witnessing

19397-424: The premiere for The Guardian wrote "it achieves the rare feat of being witty and erotic at the same time", and Curry gives a "garishly Bowiesque performance as the ambisextrous doctor." Record producer Jonathan King saw it on the second night and signed the cast to make the original cast recording over a long weekend— The Rocky Horror Show Original London Cast —that was rushed out on his UK Records label. King

19560-417: The production. Star Tim Curry recalled his first encounter with the script: I'd heard about the play because I lived on Paddington Street , off Baker Street , and there was an old gym a few doors away. I saw Richard O'Brien in the street, and he said he'd just been to the gym to see if he could find a muscleman who could sing. I said, "Why do you need him to sing?" [laughs] And he told me that his musical

19723-486: The re-murdering of Eddie, are then ushered to separate bedrooms for the night. The Narrator foreshadows that Brad and Janet may be unsafe. Janet enjoys Brad's advances in her darkened bedroom before realizing that it is Frank in disguise. He convinces Janet that pleasure is no crime, and after she asks him to promise not to tell Brad, they resume their lovemaking. The scene changes to Brad's darkened bedroom, where Brad makes love to Janet before discovering that, once again, it

19886-764: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards

20049-470: The rest of the group discovers that Janet has slept with him and Brad becomes hurt and angry ("Once in a While"). Riff Raff then notifies Frank that there is another visitor entering the castle: Dr. Everett Scott, the paraplegic science tutor whom Brad and Janet intended to visit. Dr. Scott in a wheelchair is wheeled into the laboratory by Columbia, where Frank accuses him and Brad of trying to investigate his castle, knowing that Dr. Scott has connections with

20212-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help

20375-422: The role - without hesitation. He said to him: "You're the understudy. Of course you take over. That's what you're here for!" He proved a very popular Rocky. What he lacked in height he made-up for in muscle. The show then transferred to Adelaide, where it opened on 12 August 1977 at The Warner Theatre. Max Phipps , Diana Greentree, Joan Millar, Tommy Dysart and Joan Brockenshire went on to reprise their roles from

20538-484: The role in the first UK tour in 1979 and for a year in London's West End Comedy Theatre in 1980, Antoinette Byron as Janet Weiss, David Frezza as Brad Majors, Perry Bedden (a cast member of the original 1975 film ) as Riff Raff, Kerry Myers as Magenta/Usherette, Gina Mendoza as Columbia, Steve J. Spears as Eddie/Dr. Scott (later replaced by Ignatius Jones after the Sydney season), and Jay Hackett as Rocky Horror. During

20701-631: The role of Janet, and Joan Miller, who was an understudy, took over from Kear as Columbia. It was in Melbourne, during the Sword of Damocles number, that Grant Whiteman fell while swinging on ladder and being pursued by Max Phipps . Fortunately, there was a Doctor in the house. Without missing a beat, Rocchiccioli told Clive Blackie to get into the costume: "This is your big chance. You're on!" he said. The show picked up from where Whiteman had fallen and went-on without further hitch. Soon after that Whiteman left, and, to Blackie's surprise, Rocchiccioli put him into

20864-460: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Transvestism This is an accepted version of this page Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender . The terms transvestism and transvestite were coined by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910. In the early 20th century, transvestite referred to cross-dressers , and also

21027-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed

21190-427: The set has been altered slightly because this is not a television theatre in the last days of its existence!" Rocchiccioli later said he was astonished that it did not work in Adelaide after playing in Melbourne for the two years previous. Some weeks the company did ten performances, so great was the demand for tickets. It would have gone on running - possibly for another year - if Max Phipps had not decided to leave. He

21353-666: The sexual interest in cross-dressing. He used it to describe persons who habitually and voluntarily wore clothes of the opposite sex. Hirschfeld's group of transvestites consisted of both males and females, with heterosexual , homosexual , bisexual , and asexual orientations. Hirschfeld himself was not happy with the term: He believed that clothing was only an outward symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations. In fact, Hirschfeld helped people to achieve changes of their first name (legal given names were required to be gender-specific in Germany ) and performed

21516-401: The show's narrators, introducing each musical number. The concert also featured guest appearances from the original Columbia Nell Campbell , and Kimi Wong , O'Brien's first wife and cast member from the 1975 film adaptation of the musical . The concert was later released on DVD by Kultur International Films in October 2008. In December 2012, a new production of The Rocky Horror Show began

21679-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this

21842-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in

22005-866: The show, resulting in him meeting Elvis Presley at a performance. Harry M. Miller produced the original Sydney production of Rocky Horror, which opened on 19 April 1974 at the New Arts Cinema (formerly The Astor, later The Valhalla and now an office building) in Glebe . It starred Reg Livermore as Frank-N-Furter, Jane Harders as Janet Weiss, Kate Fitzpatrick as Usherette and Magenta, Arthur Dignam as Narrator, Sal Sharah as Riff-Raff, John Paramor as Brad Majors, Graham Matters as Rocky, Maureen Elkner as Columbia, David Cameron as Eddie and Dr. Scott with Bob Hudson and Piero Von Arnam and Julie McGregor . After eighteen-month run in Sydney, Harry M. Miller's production moved to Melbourne, with Max Phipps taking over

22168-632: The small experimental space Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square , Chelsea, London , which was used as a project space for new work. Sharman had received considerable local acclaim as the director of the original Australian productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar . He went to London to direct the first British stage production of Superstar , during which he met O'Brien, who had played King Herod for just one performance. Sharman brought fellow Australians Nell Campbell and long-time scenic designer partner Brian Thomson into

22331-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At

22494-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with

22657-803: The star role. It opened at the Regent Palace Theatre on 24 October 1975 and ran through 19 months and 458 performances, finally closing on 28 May 1977. The Melbourne production included Max Phipps - Frank-N-Furter; Gregory Apps - Brad (later Stephen Clark); Paula Maxwell - Janet (later Shirley-Anne Kear, Diana Greentree); Tommy Dysart - narrator; Sal Sharah - Riff-Raff; Robyn Moase - Magenta (later Joan Brockenshire); Sue Smithers - Columbia (later Shirley-Anne Kear, Joan Millar); Graham Matters - Rocky (later Grant Whiteman, Clive Blackie); Terry Bader - Eddie/Dr Scott (later David Cameron, William Gluth). When Paula Maxwell left, resident stage director, Roland Rocchiccioli, moved Kear (at her request) into

22820-515: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer

22983-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in

23146-437: The term cross-dresser used as a more appropriate replacement. The term transvestite was historically used to diagnose medical disorders, including mental health disorders, and transvestism was viewed as a disorder, while the term cross-dresser was coined by the trans community. In some cases, the term transvestite is seen as more appropriate for use by members of the trans community instead of by those outside of

23309-540: The tour was staged at the London Playhouse Theatre and also broadcast in many cinemas across Europe, as well as on the BBC in October 2015, with Richard O'Brien taking the role as Narrator for the London dates only. On opening night, he received seven standing ovations when appearing on-stage. Tickets for the first week sold out in 72 hours so a second week was added. A charity gala night on 17 September at

23472-469: The tour will not feature interchanging guest Narrators with Philip Franks taking on the role. The show also features Kristian Lavercombe returning to the role of Riff Raff, Abigail Jaye as Magenta/Usherette, Ceris Hine reprising the role of Columbia, Joel Montague as Eddie/Dr Scott, and Maria Coyne, Christos Dante, David Gale, and Rachel Grundy as the Phantoms, with Andrew Ahern as the swing. In 2015,

23635-492: The tour, the role of The Narrator was shared between three different actors: Stuart Wagstaff , Ian "Molly" Meldrum (for 3 weeks in February during the Melbourne season) and Noel Ferrier (during the Adelaide season). Musical theatre Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by

23798-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away

23961-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in

24124-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it

24287-461: The working title for it became They Came from Denton High , but it was changed just before previews at the suggestion of Sharman to The Rocky Horror Show . After two previews, the show was premiered—without an interval—at the Royal Court's 63-seat Theatre Upstairs on 19 June 1973, and ran until 20 July 1973. The cast included Tim Curry, who had decided that Dr Frank-N-Furter should not just be

24450-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from

24613-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided

24776-622: Was adapted into the television film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again . The musical was ranked eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals", and it was one of eight British musicals featured on a commemorative stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2011. Beyond its cult status, The Rocky Horror Show is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements that followed on from

24939-552: Was directed by Christopher Luscombe and featured David Bedella as Frank. The 2006 tour cast, accompanied by Roger Lloyd-Pack as the Narrator and author O'Brien, performed " The Time Warp " live in Trafalgar Square on 22 July 2006 as part of The Big Dance event and was broadcast on BBC1's Dancing in the Street . In 2008 David Bedella released his first album The Dean St. Sessions , produced by Nathan Amzi, which included

25102-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting

25265-463: Was exhausted. In the final months Harry M. Miller was selling standing-room at the back of the theatre for up to 50-patrons per performance. After several weeks in Adelaide, Jon Finlayson replaced Max Phipps as Frank-N-Furter. Max had come-in to the production at the last moment, after Darrell Hilton and Rocchiccioli agreed on a parting of the ways, just days before the opening night. Other cast members included Tony Preece as Brad; Keith Reid (who

25428-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and

25591-423: Was going to be done, and I should talk to Jim Sharman. He gave me the script, and I thought, "Boy, if this works, it's going to be a smash." The original creative team was then rounded out by costume designer Sue Blane and musical director Richard Hartley , although Pete Moss would later take over as musical director. Michael White was also brought in to produce Rocky Horror . As the musical went into rehearsal,

25754-619: Was involved heavily in the initial promotion for the show, as well as being the minority backer of it financially with White having a majority share. The impact at the Royal Court Upstairs allowed the production be transferred to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema nearby on Kings Road from 14 August 1973 to 20 October 1973. Rocky Horror found a quasi-permanent home at the 500-seat King's Road Theatre—another cinema house, even further down Kings Road—from 3 November 1973. The show received praise from London theatre critics and won

25917-514: Was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival . Actor Tim Curry , who originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the original London production, became particularly associated with the musical. The musical was adapted into the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show , starring O'Brien as Riff Raff, with Curry also reprising his role; the film has the longest-running release in film history. In 2016, it

26080-510: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing

26243-715: Was staged at the Royal Court Theatre (where the show had its world premiere in 1973) as a one night only event hosted by Richard O'Brien. The cast featured Anthony Head and Michael Ball sharing the role of Frank-N-Furter, Ade Edmondson and Stephen Gately sharing the role of Brad, Joanne Farrell and Sophie Lawrence sharing the role of Janet, Kraig Thornber as Riff Raff, Toyah Willcox as Magenta, Amy Rosefield as Columbia, Gary Amers as Rocky Horror, Ben Richards as Eddie, Julian Littman as Dr. Scott, and original cast member Patricia Quinn as The Usherette. Christopher Biggins , Rayner Bourton, Robin Cousins , Steve Pemberton , Tony Slattery , Jamie Theakston and O'Brien served as

26406-425: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise

26569-408: Was the Melbourne understudy) as Riff-Raff; Bill Binks as Eddie/Dr. Scott; and Shane Bourne as Rocky. The Adelaide reviews were savage, and killed the production. Everyone was taken by surprise, including Max Phipps , who was brilliant in the role. Rocchiccioli said at the time: "It's baffling. Nothing has changed from Melbourne, and it's difficult to know why they hate it so much". It is the only time

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