Volume VII, Issue 0 |
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January 17, 1998
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Greetings and Welcome once again,
to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tonight,
we celebrate the 10th Birthday of your home
cast, "Midnight Insanity". Yes, it's true,
we've been performing together, as a cast,
since January 1988. Ten years is a LONG
time for any Rocky cast ... in fact, it's
practically unheard of. Midnight Insanity,
over the years, has grown to become one of
the most prominent casts around the
country. We have been televised multiple
times, held two National Rocky Horror
Conventions, and even had a sister cast who
named themselves after us, "Friday
Insanity", based in Sydney Australia.
Tonight, we celebrate 10 Years of Midnight
Insanity, and we're glad you showed up to
join us. Let the celebrating begin.
Midnight Insanity originally began performing at the famed Balboa Theatre, in Newport Beach. If you pick up the 15th Anniversary RHPS videotape, you will see the Balboa marquee go flying by in the opening promo, which was filmed by one of our cast members. Rocky Horror was a long-time tradition of the Balboa Fun Zone. Rocky itself had been playing there since the late 1970s. Midnight Insanity began, I'm told, with the first night all the parts were actually covered. Midnight Insanity grew to become a thriving cast with a truly impressive set of costumes, props and, of course, the stage show. Midnight Insanity happily performed at the Balboa Theatre until November 1991, when Newport Beach finally managed to kick us out. |
Midnight Insanity had encountered
the worst ... we were homeless. Few Rocky
casts survive a theatre move, and things
didn't necessarily look so good for Midnight
Insanity. Fortunately for us, we found
ourselves a new home at the Art Theatre in
Long Beach. Six weeks later, we had our
Grand Opening here, on January 11, 1992.
Moves are never easy on casts, though we
should count ourselves lucky. The theatre
worked with us and allowed us to build a
stage up front, as well as fly in one of our
most impressive props, the "Starship
Honeycomb". Being the only cast known to
have such a prop, we would have really hated
to lose it. Midnight Insanity continued to
grow, and a few years later, we opened a
Friday night show, in a new theatre.
In October 1995, Midnight Insanity embarked upon a new journey. Some people simply can't get enough of a "Rocky Fix" on Saturday Nights alone. For these people, Midnight Insanity brought forth a Friday night show, at the Topanga Theatre in Woodland Hills. It's a pretty serious drive, but the show has quite an amazing charm. Designed as Friday-night fare, the show features fewer props and perhaps a bit less experience, but draws upon improvisation, the core of Rocky Horror. Truly dedicated Long Beach audience members even hopped on busses to go see the Friday night show, and the Topanga Theatre drew in a significant audience base from that area. Today, the Friday night theatre continues to play every Friday night. |
During the past 10 years, Midnight
Insanity has taken part in just about every
major Rocky Horror event. Beginning with
the 15th Anniversary in October 1990,
Midnight Insanity may have only been a
couple of years old, but our costumes and
performance level led us to be chosen to
perform on stage!!! The majority of us were
Transylvanians, but still, it was quite
something to be in the spotlight at a major
convention. In attendance was Tim Curry,
Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Little Nell,
Meatloaf, and Barry Bostwick. It was here
that Sal Piro met the majority of Midnight
Insanity for the first time.
After the 15th Anniversary, Midnight
Insanity attended the 16th Anniversary in
Las Vegas, and almost attended the 17th
Anniversary in England. In August 1993,
Midnight Insanity put on our own National
Convention, the "Age of Consent". Casts
from around the country came in to see us,
perform special performances, and to
celebrate the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The next big event, of course, would be the 20th Anniversary, in October 1995. The Friday night event was held at the Roxy Theatre, where Tim Curry himself once performed The Rocky Horror Show, and the Saturday night performance of the movie took place at the Pantages Theatre. Midnight Insanity performed "The Time Warp Zone" at the Roxy, and performed various parts of the show at the Pantages. A week later marked the end of "Indecent Exposure", a cast that had performed in Berkeley, CA, for 15 years. |
Midnight Insanity attended another
Las Vegas Convention, the 21st, in 1996. We
had such a good time there, that we decided
to throw another National Convention. In
June of 1997, Midnight Insanity held "The
Light In the Darkness", Rocky Horror's 22nd
Anniversary. Several casts showed up to do
special performances with us, including a full
performance of "Shock Treatment", the
Unofficial Sequel to the Rocky Horror
Picture Show. There are now no less than
FOUR upcoming conventions planned in the
next two years, including New York; Tuscon,
Arizona; Denver, Colorado; and San Jose,
California ... this is not counting the 25th
Anniversary (hopefully) to be thrown by
20th Century Fox, in the year 2000.
In addition to appearances at
Numerous conventions, Midnight Insanity
has also performed special shows at various
Universities, and a special Halloween show in
San Diego. We have appeared on MTV, VH-1,
ABC, Fox, CNN and UPN. We appeared in the
first, nationally televised screening of The
Rocky Horror Picture Show on Fox, and more
recently on the Drew Carey Show on ABC,
complete with drag queens. :-)
Midnight Insanity would like to thank the Art and Topanga Theatre Management and crew, for allowing us to perform *every fucking week*; Denny's and Shorehouse Café, for giving us a place to crash after the show; the hundreds of Midnight Insanity cast members who helped build the show over the years; and of course, the tens of thousands of wonderful audience members who have come to see us and helped make the past 10 years completely worth it!!! |