“Within seconds I was yelling ‘Slut!’ with what felt like 100-plus people and getting attacked by a water gun,” said Daria Lukinova ’26, who attended her first performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Images Cinema on Friday, Jan. 17. Beginning at midnight, Cap & Bells transformewd the local theater into the bizarre and beloved world of Rocky Horror in a classic shadow cast performance.
“A shadow cast is different from a normal theatrical production in that the actors are lip syncing and mimicking the movements of their characters, with the movie playing behind them,” Stage Manager Quin Repetto ’28 explained.
“It’s really a Rocky Horror-specific tradition,” added Director Lyla Butler ’28. “To my knowledge, shadow casts don’t really exist outside the world of Rocky Horror.”
The show follows recently engaged Brad (Lily Fox ’28) and Janet (Emily Singer ’28), who seek refuge at a mysterious mansion after their car breaks down. At the house, Brad and Janet meet Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Charlie Smith ’25), a flamboyant scientist who reveals his latest creation: a muscular man named Rocky (Lucy Kossuth ’28). As the night unfolds, Brad and Janet are drawn into a world of extravagant musical numbers and unexpected sexual encounters, ultimately leading to Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s dramatic death. The film delves into topics of self-discovery and sexual exploration, celebrating openly queer characters and relationships.
The recent shadow cast performance of Rocky Horror was the first at the College since 2019. Butler, who has seen many Rocky Horror shadow cast performances, said she has always been inspired by the idea of producing one in a collegiate setting, as several other liberal arts colleges, including Muhlenberg and Vassar, have traditions of performing it. “I was like, ‘Why don’t I try to make one happen again at Williams?’” she said.
The tense state of American politics also motivated Butler to direct Rocky Horror during Winter Study. “I felt that it was really important to tell this story that amplifies queer voices and highlights themes of exploring one’s sexuality,” Butler said. “For myself and everyone involved, we needed to celebrate that kind of joy in a really dark time.”
Rocky Horror was advertised as a no-cut production, which Butler explained was an attempt to match the inclusive ethos of the show. “It was important to us to not cut anyone who auditioned because the message of the show is [that] everyone should be able to do this if they want,” she said.
In addition to the lack of cuts, the production team used gender-neutral casting. “We were casting less for gender and more for who we thought could embody the character the best,” Butler said. “It all goes back to the idea of self-expression, and we wanted each performer to feel the freest in the role we gave them.”
According to Maya Madison ’27, who played Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s servant Riff Raff, audience participation is essential to shadow cast productions. In typical shadow cast performances, audience members shout traditional “callouts,” specific responses to certain lines in the film. For this production, however, Butler anticipated that most people in the audience would not know the callouts, so she prepared a script for cast and crew members to shout from the back of the cinema.
Rocky Horror has many traditional callouts, including shouting ‘Slut!’ in response to Janice’s name and ‘Asshole!’ in response to Brad’s, according to Madison. “These callouts have been used and celebrated by shadow cast predictions for so long,” she said.
Butler also incorporated newer callouts from recent shadow cast productions she has seen and invented one new callout of her own: In response to Janice’s line “I was feeling done in, couldn’t win,” cast and crew members shouted, “Like Amherst!”
The actors had to adjust to the unique challenges of performing as a shadow cast and work to embody the characters that were projected behind them. For Patrice Moriarty ’28, this required modifying her approach of bringing a character to life. “I had to focus a lot more on my body movements and physicality to bring my character to life,” she said. “It felt more like a dance than typical acting.”
The cast also contended with a tight rehearsal schedule: Auditions occurred on the first day of Winter Study and the show opened 10 days later. “We only had time to rehearse each scene once before the final dress rehearsal,” Moriarty said. “We had to be extremely efficient.”
Because Images is an operational movie theater, the cast was able to practice in the space only one day before opening, costume designer Audrey O’Heir ’28 explained. “The stage is also really small, so we had to utilize other space, like the middle aisle, to make sure everyone fit.”
Despite some obstacles, Moriarty said that she hopes to see more the collaboration between Cap & Bells and Images in the future. “The Berkshires is such a richly artistic area, and I think it [would be] a missed opportunity to not be collaborating with the wonderful organizations around us,” she said.
According to O’Heir, the production team hopes this is not the last of Rocky Horror shadow cast productions at the College. “The community we created last weekend was so empowering — it was such a safe space for self-expression and experimentation, and I hope we can continue to offer that space to people in the future,” she said.
Editor’s note: Fox, a cast member of Rocky Horror and an editor at the Record, was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
