Prytania Theatre New Orleans keeps ‘Rocky Horror’ tradition alive | Entertainment/Life

Halloween night. 1998. Zephyr Field. Metairie.

That’s where Ray Paternostro saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with a live shadow cast for the first time.

It was a double feature, and The Transylvanian Electric Company theater group’s live production of the campy movie musical that night followed a special Halloween broadcast of “The Simpsons.”

Paternostro fell in love with “Rocky Horror” then and there — the music, the way audience members danced and shouted and threw things at certain points in the movie.

“Even as messy as it can be,” he said, smiling.

It’s been 28 years, and Paternostro has attended at least 500 live “Rocky Horror” productions, memorizing practically every snarky retort repeated by veteran attendees and filling a cardboard box with props collected over the years.

He’s not alone. Similarly decorated superfans are in the crowd at practically every “Rocky Horror” screening. Some have been dozens, or even hundreds, of times.

The rambunctious film has sustained a cult-like following in New Orleans and around the world for the past 50 years, thanks to its iconic costumes and themes of sexual and gender fluidity. What initially looked like a flop when it premiered in 1975 quickly became one of the longest-running theatrical releases in history after audiences in New York City turned midnight screenings into interactive parties, acting scenes out in front of the big screen and showing up in costume.

Prytania Theatrea historic place in its own right, has been doing its part to keep the tradition alive in New Orleans since before Hurricane Katrina, hosting one or two screenings with a live shadow cast each month. It’s a rite of passage for many Tulane and Loyola university students, especially those in the queer community. “Rocky Horror” attendance tends to pick up around the start of the of the school year and during Pride.

But October is the Prytania’s Super Bowl, according to manager Eric Ramstead. It’s when each of the century-old theater’s 220 seats are filled with fishnet-clad fans for up to eight — usually sold-out — productions. It’s when midnight screenings run into the wee hours of the night, and when roughly 1,500 prop kits containing rice, slices of toast, playing cards, plastic gloves, newsprint, noisemakers and toilet paper are assembled by staff only to be hurled around the theater during each show.

But it’s worth it, Ramstead said.

“If you think of what we do here as a whole, we’re here for the community, we’re here to bring people together,” he said. “‘Rocky Horror’ is something that has been proven timeless, generation after generation, to bring people together.”

‘Don’t dream it, be it’

“This isn’t your typical movie,” actor Milo Malone warned the crowd at Prytania Theatre in September at a sold-out midnight screening.

Based on Richard O’Brien’s hit London stage production, “Rocky Horror” follows a pair of innocent newlyweds who get a flat tire and end up in a castle owned by the eccentric, gender-bending scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

At the local shows, Malone and other actors with the Well-Hung Speakers troupe act out the scenes and mimic dialogue as it plays out on screen. Audience members openly shout at the characters and throw props from their kits on cue: rice when Janet and Brad are married, slices of toast when Frank-n-Furter proposes a toast.

First-time attendees are dubbed virgins, branded with lipstick and initiated on stage via various blush-worthy tasks.

It’s a silly ode to early science fiction and horror B-movies that features chaotic musical numbers and egregious lapses in continuity. But Malone said Tim Curry’s magnetic performance as Frank-N-Furter — who hails from the planet “Transsexual” and leads the virginal Brad and Janet on a journey of sexual liberation — has acted as “an introduction to queerness” to thousands of attendees for 50 years.

“Don’t dream it, be it,” Curry sings in one of the show’s most famous songs.

“This movie and this space and this event gives so many people, both queer and straight and anything in between, the chance to explore who they may or may not be,” Malone said at the show in September, just days after Curry’s death. “To try on a wig, to try on makeup, to try on fishnets, a corset, whatever they feel might be the best way to express themselves, and to do it in the safety of the anonymity of a dimly lit theater while having a really fun time.”

That’s why the team at Prytania, including Ramstead, has been willing to put on the show for so many years despite the cleanup, coordination and late nights.

“Sometimes it just looks like a hurricane of popcorn and rice and toilet paper came through the place,” Ramstead said. “You blow it all to the front, sweep it up and move on to the next day.”

Hurricane Popcorn devastates Prytania Theatre

The sound of a leaf blower and vacuum roaring to life filled the theater after cast members took their final bow around 2:30 a.m. Sept. 6.

As audience members shuffled out — quietly, so as to not wake the Prytania’s residential neighbors — Esperanza De Leon used the blower to rid the floors and red velvet chairs of rice, party hats, beer cans and emptied candy boxes. Another maintenance worker helped sweep the heaps of waste into huge trash bags.

Cast members packed up the set into plastic bins as superfan Paternostro scoured the theater’s floor for playing cards to add to his prop collection.

The September show was Thom LaVoie’s sixth. Dressed in a blazer, tie-up top and fishnets, LaVoie said he was late to the “Rocky Horror” game, seeing the movie for the first time three years ago.

He loves the Prytania’s intimate setting — as opposed to the productions that sometimes pop up at bars and breweries — and the classic screenings in 70 mm film.

“I’ve loved it so much since that I just keep coming,” he said, though he admitted, “I’m not up to 500 times like some people.”