Theater to present The Rocky Horror Show this month

Columbia, played by Sharon Colton, has a crush on Eddie, played by Jeff Ward, in the upcoming production of The Rocky Horror Show by the Conway Community Arts Association and The Lantern Theatre.
Columbia, played by Sharon Colton, has a crush on Eddie, played by Jeff Ward, in the upcoming production of The Rocky Horror Show by the Conway Community Arts Association and The Lantern Theatre.

CONWAY — There will be singing and dancing not only on stage but also most likely in the aisles as the Conway Community Arts Association and The Lantern Theatre present the campy cult classic The Rocky Horror Show, by Richard O’Brien.

The Lantern will present this pop/rock musical as part of its Late Night at the Lantern series. The production, described on the CCAA website as “a humorous tribute to science fiction and B horror movies,” is rated R and is for mature audiences only.

The Rocky Horror Show will be presented at 8 p.m. Oct. 15-18, 22-25 and 29-31, with an additional late performance at 11 p.m. on Halloween, Oct. 31.

Reservations are highly encouraged and will be accepted beginning Monday. To make a reservation, email ConwayLanternTheatre@gmail.com.

“With all the inquiries we’ve gotten so far, it’s going to be the hottest ticket in town,” said Liz Parker, treasurer of the CCAA Board of Directors.

Seats are $20 each. Season-ticket holders are reminded that this special presentation is not included in the season tickets. A reservation will assure patrons of a seat; however, seats are not assigned. Seating will be first-come, first-served. The doors will open 30 minutes prior to curtain.

Tickets are to be paid for at the door with cash, check or credit/debit card, and all reservations need to be paid for, regardless of how many people in a group actually show up. When making reservations, patrons are asked to state exactly how many seats are needed for which performance, as they probably will not be able to add reservations or change them at a later time.

Conway native Justin Pike directs The Rocky Horror Show, with choreography by Kelley Amanda Green of Conway and stage management by Trent Reese of Conway.

“The play was first presented in London and Los Angeles and then made into a movie,” Pike said. “They took it to Broadway right after the movie came out.

“We are presenting this production to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the movie and of the Broadway show. The movie was a hit; the Broadway show flopped.

“This production is a little different than the movie. Some of the musical arrangements are a little different, but it has most of the same lines, the same characters and the same situations.”

Pike, who now lives in Little Rock and is the artistic director of The Studio Theatre, said the musical is “about two young straight-laced, conservative, newly engaged people in town for a wedding.”

“They have a flat tire and solicit help at the castle,” Pike said. “Through the hospitality of Dr. Frank N Furter (a mad scientist), they stay the night and learn about the world of desire and temptation and their consequences. There is some morality in the mix, although it comes at the very end.”

Pike said the couple, Brad and Janet, meet “the crazy cast of characters that live in the castle and hear their stories.”

“Dr. Frank N Furter propels the story,” Pike said.

Pike, the son of Lisa McInerney and Jack Pike, both of Conway, graduated from Conway High School in 2000 and from the University of Central Arkansas in 2006 with a degree in theater.

He is making his directorial debut with the Conway Community Arts Association and The Lantern Theatre.

“I’m very excited about it. I wanted to be a designer, and then I started acting. Now I’ve parlayed that into directing,” Pike said.

“I acted professionally in Nashville, Tennessee, for a while, and I’ve appeared in productions at Murry’s Dinner Playhouse in Little Rock. My first job out of college was a techie at The Rep in Little Rock,” he said.

“Now I’m living the dream,” Pike said with a laugh. “I’m also on the board of directors for the Royal Players in Benton and vice president of the Arkansas Community Theater Association.”

Several local personalities will play the role of The Narrator, who ties the story together. They include Johnnie Brannon, John Schenck, Robert Lloyd, Jeff Matthews, Jenny and Jay Ruud, Gerry Bruno, Andy Hawkins and H.G. Foster.

Patrons may visit www.conwayarts.org to find out what night these personalities will appear and make appropriate reservations. Pike will also take on the role of The Narrator for one night.

The following actors appear in The Rocky Horror Show:

• Brian Earles of North Little Rock plays Dr. Frank N Furter.

“My character, Dr. Frank N Furter, is the ‘man’ of the castle,” Earles said. “He rules the house. A lot of characters live in his house, and he has, or has had, an intensive relationship with all of them. Some still worship him; some resent him. This all leads to interesting relationships.

“I’ve come to love this play. My whole family is coming to see it.”

Earles is a 2014 graduate of North Little Rock High School and a sophomore at Hendrix College, where he is majoring in theater and dance. He said he worked with Pike in The Studio Theatre’s recent production of Xanadu.

“He invited me to audition for this play,” Earles said. “I’m glad he did. I’m having a lot of fun.”

• Johnny Passmore of Conway portrays Brad Majors.

“I wasn’t really all that familiar with the show before I auditioned for it,” said Passmore, who teaches gifted and talented enrichment classes at Eastside Elementary School in Greenbrier. “I think I had seen the movie, maybe one time.

“It’s a little out there, a little edgy, but I think you need to challenge yourself in all aspects of life.

“My character, Brad, is very naive, at first. He doesn’t know anything about the world, but by the end of the show, he knows more than enough.”

Passmore said he is enjoying playing a role that pairs him with Ashley Murie.

“We were in the Conway Dinner Theater production of Into the Woods,” he said. “She played Rapunzel, and I was Rapunzel’s prince.

“In this show, Ashley plays Janet, who is my character’s fiancee. That’s fun.”

Passmore has appeared in several productions produced by the Faulkner Academy of Arts at the Conway Dinner Theater during the past five or six years, including its most recent production, Little Shop of Horrors.

• Ashley Murie of Conway plays the part of Janet Weiss.

“My character, Janet, is very naive. She’s very clingy, very dependent on Brad. When Brad is away from her, she becomes very clingy to whoever is near,” Murie said.

“Everybody has a sexual awakening in this show. This show is a lot of fun. It’s so campy,” she said.

“I played Rapunzel in Into the Woods at the Conway Dinner Theater,” Murie said. “Rapunzel was such a screechy character who got lost in the woods and died.

“My character in this show, Janet, is kind of a screechy character, too. She gets lost in the castle and almost dies.”

Murie is a 2011 graduate of Greenbrier High School. She studied acting at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton. She now works as a nursing assistant at a hospital in Little Rock.

• Greer Williams of Sherwood appears as Riff Raff. “We’re taking my character of Riff Raff in a little

different direction than the movie does,” said Williams, a fifth-year senior sociology major at UCA.

“In the movie, the character is played by a man who is gross and creepy and wears suit pieces,” Williams said. “My version of the character is a little more ambiguous, neither male nor female. It will be extreme.

“We want it to be a little confusing. Confusion is our purpose.”

Williams appeared in the Late Night at the Theatre production of Sordid Lives this spring.

“I heard they were going to do Rocky Horror, and I came on over and auditioned for it,” she said. “I’m having a great time with it. Where else would I want to spend three hours a night, five nights a week? I do theater for fun.”

Williams appears each spring in The Vagina Monologues at UCA.

• Wendy Shirar of Conway plays the part of Magenta.

“My character is one of the extraterrestrials,” Shirar said. “She’s somewhat rebellious, easily led astray. Her sibling is Riff Raff.

“She has been one of Dr. Frank N Furter’s lovers in the past, as have all the characters.”

Shirar, who works in the human resources department at Acxiom Corp. in Conway, said she is having fun with this character.

“But it is a huge challenge,” she said. “This show is not a Hats or a [These Shining Lives],” she said, referring to past CCAA productions in which she has performed. “This is a big stretch for me. I’ve never been in a show like this.

“I do sing and dance. … I try, at least. There is no turning back.”

Shirar said she wanted to audition for The Rocky Horror Show, “but I heard a rumor that all the other cast members were very young,” she said, “and I am very old. But they sent me an audition notice, and I came and auditioned and got a part.”

Shirar said she remembers seeing the movie in the 1970s when she was a young woman.

“I liked the movie, and I like this show,” she said.

Shirar has been a longtime supporter of the Conway Community Arts Association and serves on its board of directors as a member at-large.

• Sharon Colton of Conway plays the part of Columbia.

“I haven’t auditioned for anything in a long time,” said Colton, who last appeared in the CCAA production of Kitchen Witches. “The Rocky Horror Show drew me out. I’ve seen the movie before.

“I’m having tremendous fun with this play,” Colton said. “It has a great cast and a great director — everybody’s just great.

“My character, Columbia, is a female character. She is a spurned lover of Frank N Furter because Frank N Furter is fickle. Now she has a very large crush on Eddie.”

Colton is a broadcast specialist at the Arkansas Educational Television Network.

• Jorrell Bonner of Conway appears as Rocky.

“I’m a creation of Dr. Frank N Furter,” Bonner said of his character.

“We’ve all heard of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster,” Bonner said. “My character is Dr. Frank N Furter’s monster, but he’s not ugly — he’s beautiful, a perfect specimen of man — with blond hair and a tan.

“I’m working on that,” Bonner, who is African-American, said with a laugh.

Bonner, who grew up in East St. Louis, Missouri, said he had heard of this show and had heard a few of the songs and knew it was a crazy, wacky show.

“The hardest part for me is not having many lines,” he said. “All I’ve been doing [to prepare for the show] is working out at the gym. I’ve never been in anything like this before.”

Bonner is a sales representative for Hewlett Packard of Conway. He appeared in the Conway Dinner Theater’s production of Little Shop of Horrors, but that was his first acting role since he attended Amherst College in Amherst, Connecticut.

• Jeff Ward of Conway plays the dual roles of Eddie and Dr. Scott.

“Eddie is a biker, a tough sort of guy who gets mixed up with the wrong people,” Ward said. “The audience won’t meet Eddie until right before his demise.

“He likes Columbia, but Dr. Frank N Furter also likes Columbia, so it’s a crazy love triangle.”

Ward describes his other character, Dr. Scott, as a German spy who has come to investigate UFOs. It turns out that Brad was his former student.

“This show was a big 1970s sci-fi, B horror movie, very campy. I’ve seen the movie a few times,” Ward said.

“It’s a little edgy … racy … it is part of our Late Night at the Lantern series,” said Ward, who is a member of the CCAA Board of Directors.

“From the response we’ve already gotten, people are coming from all over to see this show,” he said. “It’s a spectacle. We are thinking about having some fun things for the audience to do so they can interact with the cast.”

Ward is a UCA graduate with a degree in theater. He has been in several productions at The Lantern, including the Late Night at the Lantern production of God in Carnage, in which he won an award for Outstanding Male Actor at the Arkansas American Association of Community Theaters Festival last winter in Pine Bluff. The play won the Regional AACTFest in New Mexico in April and went on to compete in the National AACTFest earlier in the summer in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Ward is an account executive with Cumulus Media in Little Rock.

The following actors appear as the “phantoms,” or “groupies” of Dr. Frank N Furter, who all sing and dance as members of the ensemble of the show:

• Darby Burdine of Conway holds a master’s degree in English from UCA and works in public relations at World Services for the Blind in Little Rock.

• Chris Harris of Conway is a graduate of Morrilton High School and an Army veteran, and is self-employed. He has appeared in several CCAA productions, including, most recently, These Shining Lives and Mrs. Mannerly.

• Sarah Rawlinson of Conway graduated from UCA in May with a degree in creative writing and works with an adult with disabilities through the Faulkner County Day School.

• Ben Mills of Benton is a senior at Benton Harmony Grove High School and has appeared in various productions at The Royal Theatre in Benton.

• Brooke Melton of Little Rock is a home-schooled senior and a member of the choir at Little Rock Central High School. She worked with Pike in Legally Blonde at The Royal Theatre in Benton and appeared in Saline County Shakes’ presentation of The Taming of the Shrew.

• Pammie Fabert of Melbourne, Australia, has been in Conway for several years. She graduated from UCA in 2008 with a degree in theater and has been in several CCAA productions, including, most recently, Mrs. Mannerly. She also has a degree in social work from a university in Australia.

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