“Rocky Horror” Brings Queer Joy to Campus

Emily Cobb | November 1, 2023


The “Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadowcast has been a yearly event at Warren Wilson College (WWC) for the past three years. The production is sponsored by the Queer Resource Center (QRC) on campus and is completely student-led. This year there were two shows, October 28 at 8 p.m. and October 29 at 7 p.m. in Bryson Gym.

A shadowcast is when a group of actors perform the film at the same time it is being screened. At WWC, the actors are directly in front of the screen and are in costume and makeup lipsyncing to the audio of the film.

Virgin attendees, audience members who have not seen “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadowcast before, were marked with a red “V” on their forehead when entering.

Lili Jones is in their second year at WWC and is an environmental policy major on the Theater Crew. She is an avid “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and theater fan.

“I think it [“Rocky Horror”] represents kind of the basis of the entirety of modern queer culture and how we absorb into society and how we're accepted by people,” Jones said. “It's amazing.” 

Luci Hittle, a sophomore English major who played Magenta in the shadowcast, had similar sentiments. 

“I think it [“Rocky Horror”] represents freedom of expression,” Hittle said. “Just to be who we are, and share that community together. We were talking about this in my queer film class about how a lot of people have experienced watching queer movies as kids alone in the room or watching with friends and it's a big secret. You don't tell your parents. But here it's something that you can share with the queer and trans community and you can be loud about it and scream about it.”

Nora Ellis is a sophomore on the Garden Crew majoring in sustainable agriculture. Them being transgender as well as having friends participating in the production led them to come. 

Their favorite aspect of the performance was the relationship between the crowd and the actors.

“I love how the walls are kind of broken down between the audience and the performers, and all rules are off,” Ellis said.

The performance was highly interactive, even having two virgin audience members act in the show. Various actors throughout the performance ran through the aisles, threw condoms and toyed with audience members. There was even a splash zone.

Ruby Schober-Colburn is a sophomore on the Athletics Crew majoring in global studies and German. She played Rocky in the shadowcast, and while the audition experience was nerve-wracking, it was a fun experience and the community was supportive.

Schober-Colburn enjoys how the shadowcast allowed the cast to make the show their own.

“It allows us to have our own spin on things and to have different genders [play characters],” Schober-Colburn said. “And just different people expand on ‘Rocky Horror’.”

A common theme expressed about “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadowcast was that it brought people together, especially the queer community. This shadowcast is becoming something of a tradition at WWC and has plans to continue. Auditions for the next rendition will be occurring early in the fall 2024 semester, hosted by the QRC.

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