Broadway’s Rocky Horror Revival is Coming. Leave the Movie Callbacks at Home
by Chris Peterson
The Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show starts previews this week, and before audiences decide to turn Studio 54 into a midnight movie screening, I’d like to offer one humble suggestion: don’t.
Yes, Rocky Horror has one of the most famous audience participation traditions in pop culture: the callbacks, the shouting, and the whole wonderfully chaotic ritual are a huge part of why it has lasted. But that tradition comes from movie screenings and shadowcasts. A Broadway revival is not the same thing.
A live stage production is not a screen you yell at. The people onstage are actually doing the work right in front of you. They are not frozen on film. They cannot pause while someone in the mezzanine decides this is their moment to scream a line they learned at a college screening fifteen years ago.
Everyone knows the kind of callbacks I’m talking about. The shouting of “Asshole!” and “Slut!” during “Dammit Janet.” The running commentary during Frank’s entrance, the yelling back at Brad and Janet like the stage can hear you the same way a movie screen can. That stuff may be part of the cult movie tradition, but in a Broadway house, it stops being fun pretty quickly and starts becoming a distraction.
I am not saying audiences need to sit there silently like they are at a tax seminar. Rocky Horror should be loud. It should be rowdy. It should feel dangerous, silly, sexy, and alive. Go have a blast. But there is a difference between being an energized audience and trying to become part of the show when nobody asked you to.
If this production wants audience participation, it can ask for it. If the creative team builds that into the experience, great. But until that happens, the better move is simple: let the cast perform the show they rehearsed.
Rocky Horror does not need help being Rocky Horror. It already has the title, the fandom, the camp, and the chaos built in. What it needs from Broadway audiences right now is a little restraint.
There is a place for the movie tradition and shadowcasts. There is a place for the callbacks and all the beloved madness.
That place just may not be this Broadway theatre.
UPDATE: Apparently, this language was at one point posted on the show’s website, although I have not been able to verify that myself. And honestly, even if it was, my point still stands.
Audience participation may be part of Rocky Horror lore, and the production may be trying to acknowledge that reality, but that does not cancel out the need for people to be mindful of the actors onstage and the audience members around them. Live theatre still requires a little awareness, even at its wildest.