WILD AND UNTAMED THINGS

I lost my Rocky Horror Virginity when I was thirteen years old. My older brother Jerry, who was and is my hero, let me and my buddy Noel tag along with him and his high school friends- the drama kids of Blackford High, whom I also idolized- to see this funny movie where people yelled and threw toilet paper and went insane.

And it was at midnight. 

I went. I was scared shitless, but I went. How could I not? Somehow, my parents were letting me go to a movie that started at midnight. On a Saturday. With a bunch of teen agers. Life was not always brilliant in those days for me. But this was one of those rare times where the Gods had granted me a moment of grace. And I was going to run with it for as far and as long as I could.

We piled in to a station wagon that seemd to have at least twenty people in it, and headed to Cinema 150. I was so excited. What would happen? As we drove along, everyone was laughing, singing The Time Warp, and going over the shout outs for the movie. I had no idea what was going on, but I loved it. Something felt right.

We get to the theatre, park, and walk towards the entrance. The lot is full of young people, a lot of them in costumes. Some are smoking weed, some are drinking beer, and all of them have this mad gleam in their eyes. 

We walk into the theatre. It is teeming with at least a thousand lunatics, all laughing and talking and dancing and singing and not giving the slightest shit what anyone else things about them.

And to my great mortification, I am loudly declared a "Virgin!" by my brother and his friends. The thousand lunatics turn as one and stare at me with the Devil's Eyes, and scream back "Virgin!" and drag me to the front of the theatre. 

And my induction began.

Being a Rocky Virgin simply meant I hadn't seen the film yet. But instead of being made to feel stupid or strange or inadequate by the Lunatics, the Thousand  taught the Time Warp,  gave me some hints on the shout outs, and took into their glorious, bedazzled arms.

And thus began a lifetime of going to the film as well as being in and later directing the original Rocky Horror Show, the stage musical on which the 1977 movie is based.

Right now, it is tech week for my latest visit to Frank's Place, up at StageDoor Theatre in Conifer. It's one of three productions currently going on in the Denver area. Which I think points to a clear fact:

We seem to need to find our inner freak here.

We need to let go of all the sturm und drang, the yelling and crying and wondering-why-ing and just give ourselves over to absolute pleasure.

This show has been an absolute joy for me. I don't know if it's the cast, the time of year, or what- but every moment has filled me with a sense of not being insane. 

At least not being the bad kind of insane.

This show always opens the vault of memory for me; from being thirteen and finding an escape from my dysfunctional home if only for two hours every week end to my first job as an Equity Actor at the Barn Theatre in Michigan the summer after graduating from SJSU right before moving to NYC to directing my first production at Reel Kids.

I've been doing the Time Warp for a long time now. And while I might, the Warp never gets old. 

It gets younger. Groovier. Sexier. 

Our cast is sublime- every single one of them. 

Our set magnificent, the lights moody, the sound gothic, the costumes delcious, the props kinky, and the whole vibe is dirty, dreamy, and delightful.

I want all of you to come see it with me. I don't give a shit if you live across the country or the ocean. Get out here. Now. 

And now I'm off to our first preview, then tomorrow we open.  I'll write more soon. I got a short film set to shoot later this month. And a new script I am excited about. And another script. And another. And I need to write about them. It helps me. 

Here's a song. It's Over at the Frankenstein Place.

BOO

Twenty-one years ago today, I went to New York City for the first time in my life.  I had just finished a cross country trip with a friend I had made that summer doing summer stock at the Barn Theatre in Michigan.  He was from a little town in Jersey called Peapack.  We spent about a week traversing the country, and had gone to places like Ashland, Oregon to see the Shakespeare festival, and Twin Falls, Idaho to see where Evel Kneivel tried to jump the Snake River with his rocket/motorcycle thing.  I even saw my first moose when we drove through Yellowstone days before it closed for the winter.  Somewhere, there is an old box full of old photos of that trip- I don't know where, exactly, and hope to come across it before I kick- but until then, I have to rely on my mind's eye.  Anyway, we ended up in Peapack on October 30, and on the next day we took the train into NYC, crossing under the Hudson River and emerging from Penn station like ants crawling out of their colony.  I remember thinking of the Hopi, and their belief that when they were created, they came into this world from an older one via a hole in the ground.  Here I was, a neo-Hopi, coming out of a hole in the ground from my old world and into a new one.  It was exciting, strange, and a little scary.  We walked all over town, first going up to Hell's Kitchen, then down to the Village, ending up near Union Square where a my buddies girl friend from the summer- a drama major at NYU- lived.   We watched the Halloween parade, which to me looked like a cross between Mardi-gras and a zombie apocalypse.  It was glorious.  From there, we proceeded to Rock Around the Clock, and bistro near St. Mark's Place, and drank a lot of raspberry kamikazes.  A lot.  At one point in the evening, after things had become fuzzy, my buddy's girl made a pass at me- which was shocking and flattering and uncomfortable.  The three of us staggered back to her place, and crashed.  Well, I crashed- they got into an argument.   I was awoken at dawn by my friend, who informed me that he and his lady friend were breaking up, and it was time to go.  I was exhausted, somewhere between hung over and still drunk, and not in the mood to go anywhere.  But he was insistent.  So off we trudged, through now mostly empty streets, which were full of the remnants of the nights revelries.

That's NYC to me- dramatic, strange, and intriguing.  She's been very good to me over the years.  I've had the great fortune of having most of my plays produced there, and for several years wrote reviews for nytheatre.com - one of the best sites for theatre in the country.  I can't think of another city in the world where you can go to a show every day of the year, and never repeat yourself.  

And this November, Gotham is treating me kindly again, with two readings.  First, on November 14, Harvardwood NYC is presenting a reading of Burning Man, a screenplay based on my play Burning the Old Man, at 6pm at Solas 232 E. 9th St.  And then on November 19, Boomerang Theatre Co. is presenting a reading of my latest play, Riddle Lost, at 5pm at ART/NY 520 8th Ave. 3rd floor.  If you are around NYC, I really hope you can make it.  I don't know if it'll be as amazing for you as that first day in Manhattan was for me, but it just might be.