“The Rocky Horror Show” – Courtesy of Shotwell Photos. Used with permission.
Saturday night at the Basile Theatre, The Rocky Horror Show did not merely return — it erupted.
When I first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975, it changed my life. As a gay man coming of age before the AIDS crisis, I felt it giving me permission to embrace my sexuality, stop apologizing for desire and imagine freedom. I have seen every version Zach & Zack have staged. This one hurled me back to that dizzy first encounter: pounding music, wild color, outrageous costumes and joyful excess. The theater became a party at full throttle and I surrendered all over again.
That is the enduring magic of Rocky Horror: it turns private liberation into communal celebration. By mixing old sci-fi, horror, glam rock and a wink at every social rule, it hands the audience a permission slip to dress up, shout back and shed inhibition.
Producer Zach Rosing and director Zack Neiditch understand that spirit. They have made the show a Halloween ritual at the Athenaeum without letting it go stale. The live band, cabaret seating, guided call-outs and video provide the heartbeat; new casting and inventive touches keep the ritual surprising.
“The Rocky Horror Show” -Courtesy of Shotwell Photos. Used with permission.
The freshest idea this year is Cindy Collins as the Narrator. Co-founder of Actors Theatre of Indiana and one of Indy’s finest character actors, she proves a gifted comic narrator. A lifted eyebrow, pursed lip or disapproving stare becomes a punchline. First seen in filmed segments, then wandering in with a cameraman trailing her, she becomes part commentator, part gatecrasher. The running gag is her cocktail: each return finds her looser and wobblier until the grand observer is a cheerfully tipsy participant.
At the center, Tim Hunt returning as Frank-N-Furter delivers a tour de force. His vocals are full, controlled and thrilling over the band. He prowls with dangerous confidence and tosses away lines with wicked timing. What matters most: he captures Tim Curry’s mix of glamour, menace and vulnerability without imitating him. He creates a magnetic host who still reveals the lonely outsider beneath the corset and swagger.
Around him, the company is strong. Michael Krauter makes Riff Raff sly and watchful until his sinister purpose snaps into focus. Johnnie Ray Hughes gives Rocky imposing physicality and wide-eyed innocence. Sophie Sweany-Kocher lets Janet’s prim composure unravel with comic clarity, while Reno Moore makes Brad’s stiffness part of the joke as his certainty buckles. Jonathan Young is a standout as both Eddie and Dr. Scott — not a quick change but two different men in voice, posture and rhythm. Eddie bursts in with swagger and an irresistible grin; Dr. Scott folds that confidence inward with clipped authority and fussy reactions.
“The Rocky Horror Show” – Courtesy of Shotwell Photos. Used with permission.
Kenny Shepard’s choreography demands crisp unison and complete trust in the joke, and the cast meets it fearlessly. Driving that disciplined abandon, the band is a powerhouse under music director Tenéh B. C. Karimu. Guitars snarl, drums land with chest-rattling force, bass supplies a deliciously dirty pulse — yet the playing stays tight and serves the comedy. This isn’t accompaniment; it’s the engine. When “The Time Warp” began, sitting still felt impossible.
Costume designer Anthony James Sirk matches the force with visual audacity: leather, straps, corsetry and fetish wear with metallic, retro-futurist accents — part laboratory, part intergalactic nightclub. Frank advertises appetite and control, Rocky is creation and spectacle, the ensemble looks ready for a planet without earthly rules. Michael Moffatt’s saturated lighting and Drew Bryson’s hair and makeup complete it with glam excess and alien polish. The evening has Broadway-level polish — concert-scale sound, split-second lighting — but Zach & Zack preserve the dangerous edge Broadway can lose: anything might happen a few feet from your table.
For all that brilliance, what moved me most was how alive the freedom at its heart felt. Its queerness was never preserved behind glass or reduced to a history lesson. Androgyny and fluid desire were playful, generous and thrilling.
“The Rocky Horror Show” – Courtesy of Shotwell Photos. Used with permission.
Proof of its universality sat near me: four presumably straight, burly men, fully engaged and enjoying the spectacle without apology.
That welcome feels urgent now, when culture wars again target people for being different. Yet seeing that freedom claimed so joyfully gave me hope: too many people have stepped into the light — and recognized themselves and one another there — for us ever to be forced entirely back into the shadows.
Rocky Horror insists difference is not something to fear or erase, but to protect, celebrate and set loose under the lights. Zach & Zack make the message immediate: come as you are, imagine who else you might become and surrender to the pleasure.
I did — and for a few exhilarating hours, the whole room seemed freer.
The Rocky Horror Show continues 7:30 p.m. Oct. 23-24 and 29-31 at the Basile Theatre at the Athenaeum, 401 E. Michigan St. Tickets available rockyhorrorindy.com
