To mark its release, Services Généraux hosted a watch party in New York on February 17 at Public Records, as well as a screening on February 26 at Espace Commines in Paris.
For Sterling Tull, the makeup artist behind the Broadway character’s looks, that relationship started long before landing the job. Growing up Mormon, Tull first encountered Curry through grainy YouTube clips at around twelve years old, after searching for footage of his performance as Pennywise in IT. The suggested video was “Sweet Transvestite.”
“I watched Tim’s magnetic performance on a blurry screen— and it absolutely opened up my world,” Tull recalls. “I had never seen something so strange yet incredibly alluring.”
For the Broadway production, Tull wanted to preserve the film's unmistakable visual identity while pulling from British Trad Goth, New Romantics, Club Kids, Grace Jones, David Bowie, and the drag scene. The result needed to feel “authentic, messy, grimy, and punk.” And while Broadway may be the most visible iteration of Rocky Horror right now, Tull recognizes the shadow cast as an essential part of its survival.
“It demonstrates that Rocky Horror is for everyone and anyone,” Tull says. “I wanted the makeup in the show to reflect the drag and dress-up culture that kept it alive.”
That culture was on full display across New York this October, where two very different productions brought their own interpretations of the iconic Transylvanian castle to life. Both were queer and trans-led, both sold out, and neither had much interest in simply recreating what audiences have already seen.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW: EXTRA-TRANSSEXUAL
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Extra-Transsexual had three sold-out shows between The Sultan Room and TV Eye. If the original film was about embracing the strange, this production took that sentiment and ran with it, building an unapologetically trans and queer interpretation with a cast pulled directly from New York's nightlife underground.
Rather than attempting to imitate the original characters, each performer brought their own personality, gender expression, and theatrical sensibility to the role. Latex maid costumes, Sequin capes, red burlesque numbers, and theatrical maximalism transformed the production into an elevated drag show.
Lesbian Bar Princess, Malea Kimberly directed and co-produced the event, opening the night with a burlesque number as the lips. She explained that the goal was to bring in artists who were “loudly queer and trans,” particularly nightlife performers who are theatre kids at heart but feel disenfranchised by commercial theater. “The amount of trans talent that exists in New York is unreal,” says Dykes and Dolls co-founder and the production’s co-producer Anna Campbell. “We all should be hiring trans people as often as we can, both in and out of nightlife.”
For comedian Jer Block, getting to produce and play both Janet Weise and Frank-N-Furter was an opportunity to indulge in a particularly unapologetic side of transness. “As a trans woman, I feel immense pressure… to shoulder a sense of traditional womanhood, since the genesis of my womanhood is untraditional,” she explains. “Frank kicks that feeling in the teeth, and I love embodying him completely.”
The sold-out shows are a pretty good indication that audiences are hungry for exactly this kind of interpretation. What started as a passion project has become an annual Halloween fixture, with a growing cast and an audience eager for more.
LIPS: THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
At House of Yes, producer and director Hex Winters and a cast of flexible freaks brought their own version of the castle to life for multiple sold-out performances throughout October. Now in its fourth year, the production understands that the venue is just as much a part of the experience as the show itself. Set inside a circus-inspired nightlife space, the production leaned into the theatricality of its surroundings while keeping the original film's punk sensibility intact.
This wasn't simply a shadow cast with performers acting out scenes alongside the film. LIPS created its own theatrical moments, incorporating live performance, filmed sequences, and plenty of audience participation. The gender-bending casting was especially fun, with characters reimagined outside their original gender presentations. This show had it all: tap dancing, live tattooing, sword choreography, aerial birdcage numbers, and so many more gags that can only be experienced.
For Winters, the production is an opportunity to push the boundaries of what nightlife performance can look like. “I think we have the best performers in the world,” Winters claims. “I think our show is better than Broadway's, and you can print that.”
The real showstopper was Brooklyn drag artist God Complex as Frank-N-Furter. Bringing a sexy, carefree confidence to the character with A LOT of cigarette smoke, they managed to make the role feel entirely their own. “In the end, Frank is a rock star. A Diva. Confident in her ego. No need to explain herself,” God Complex says. “They don’t need to. They still adore her without definition or explanation. And she doesn’t give a shit. She knows she’s brilliant.”
That attitude extended beyond the stage.
During the first intermission, Riff Raff, played by recently crowned King of Drag, Lollygag gives God Complex a tattoo live on stage. The moment was part of a larger effort to imagine the relationships between characters beyond what audiences see in the original film. God Complex describes the scene as an intimate, charged exchange, even comparing its sailor-on-sailor power play to the work of Tom of Finland. Frank's iconic tattoos, like the “Boss” heart tattoo, became the inspiration for the live collaboration.
With a cast of artists who move between drag, dance, theater, and nightlife, LIPS takes full advantage of everyone's individual talents. The result is a show that feels like a party, a play, and a very horny fever dream all at once.
“The most important thing for our version of this show is that [the audience] take[s] away queer joy and a celebration of real Brooklyn underground performers,” Winters reflects.
And that's perhaps the point. The Rocky Horror Picture Show has never belonged to just one stage, one cast, or one interpretation. Its legacy lives through the people who continue to reinvent it, finding new ways to make its outrageousness feel relevant to another generation.
Broadway might be having its Rocky Horror moment, but New York's underground has been celebrating it all along. If this Halloween proved anything, it's that the film's legacy is in very good hands. So, when next October rolls around, don't just watch from the sidelines. Put on your fishnets, learn the callbacks, and find your local shadow cast. As the song goes, “Let’s do the time warp again.” And again.
Right in that sweet spot, before temperatures dropped and while leaves were still a gorgeous array of colors, Belvedere brought a group of journalists out to Warsaw to get a taste of what they're all about. The trip started with a journey into the city's architectural world and contemporary art scene, contextualizing Belvedere so that we could understand not only who they are as a company, but why they are that way to begin with. After a walk through Old Town and a trek into a number of museums and art galleries, the answer became quite clear: Belvedere is all about craftsmanship and is continuously informed by a rich heritage that has mastered the art of embracing change. Sure, they love tradition, but they're not interested in letting that keep them in the past. They move with the times, and actually, working with pop culture names we know and love, like Gabriette, is what sets them apart.
On the first night of my trip to Poland with Belvedere, we tried a myriad of cocktails that left me ravenous. The lychee, passionfruit, and jalapeño martinis were all standouts. Important to note: I hate tequila; I’m very pro-vodka, which is another reason I was the perfect person for this. The jalapeño martini was exactly what I wanted in a margarita alternative, adding a little kick and subverting expectations of a vodka-based drink. But what really took the cake for me was the espresso martini. I was looking forward to it, not only because Belvedere had teamed up with Gabriette for the release of the Dirty Brew, their coffee bean-infused vodka, but also because it was being whispered about like it was some God-like thing.
“How did you get that?” writers at the dinner table asked. We’d just concluded a conversation on Charles Bukowski poetry and also this trend of toe-accentuation in fashion and how journalists need to expand the conversation there, both of which were started by me. The espresso martini wasn’t served at the cocktail hour before our first dinner, which made it all the more enticing. I had high hopes for what this coveted drink might taste like. It exceeded my expectations by far. I hate for this to sound like a commercial, but genuinely, sipping that espresso martini was like licking a coffee-flavored ice cream cone. Delish.
On the second day, we got to investigate the magical powers of Belvedere and figure out what exactly made those lychee and passionfruit martinis so good. After a gorgeous drive through the Autumn trees of Żyrardów and out of the city center of Warsaw, we found ourselves in a quietly tucked-away world of distilleries, where we discovered that harvesting, mashing, and fermenting are the core processes that rye has to go through to turn into a shot of vodka. And with that, shots of vodka were handed out to everyone. Some downed them, some sipped, and some simply sniffed, having had a long night of lychee martinis.
Later that night, everyone was brought out to Nobu, where caviar was bumped all night, as were tunes. Bread soup, miso cod, smoked wagyu, and an endless supply of cocktails pre-gamed the main course of the night: an after-dark dance party. The room rang with music, and suddenly dinner guests were on their feet, energized by the experience and dancing ‘til the night came to a close, because that's exactly what Belvedere does to you. It makes you want to get up and dance with the guy next to you until the sun comes up again.
