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January 19, 2002
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Welcome to Midnight Insanity's 14th
Birthday Celebration ... "The year we enter
puberty" (or as so anointed by our Pre-Show
hosts). Tonight marks the end of a simply
incredible year for Midnight Insanity ... and
that's what this occasionally-published
"cast newspaper" is all about! But first,
we'd like to thank everyone who made it
down to our Birthday Show, and we hope
that you'll join us for the Birthday Party
tomorrow (see Mark). Now, it's actually
been two years since our last printing ...
but since my memory isn't so great (and
space is limited), we'll primarily be covering
MI's 2001.
Well, if there was anything that'll mark MI's 2001 best, it would be our "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" Rocky Horror convention, which took place last June. This was the third RHPS convention thrown by Midnight Insanity, and it was by and far the most ambitious. We began by making it a four-day convention (typically cons are only 2 days), and filled it with a rockin' party featuring the "White Trash Debutantes" (who will play at our party tomorrow!!); a full blown "Oscar Horror Picture Show" awards ceremony; two feature films: "A Regular Frankie Fan" (from Magick Films) and "Elvira's Haunted Hills" (featuring Richard O'Brien!!); full cast performances of both Rocky Horror and Shock Treatment; and finally a Sunday afternoon picnic and softball game. Special guests at the |
convention included Lady Patricia Quinn,
Bob Simon (Award winning "Frank", from the
Tiffany "Rocky Horror Show" Production),
"Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" (Cassandra
Peterson), and of course, Sal Piro
(President of the RHPS fan club). We also
performed not one, but THREE all-new
Special Performances at the con, including
"Willkommen" (which you'll see tonight),
"Lady Stardust" (available for download on
the web, ask Becky!), and "Girl for All
Seasons" (featuring all of M.I.'s Trixies!!)
Now, if you missed out on the con, we have a
treat for you as we'll be doing an encore
performance tonight of the "Willkommen"
number, that we performed at the con. The
rest you'll have to look up on our website.
They say that everyone has their "15 minutes of fame". Perhaps one of the benefits of being in MI is that we get to pool all of ours together. :-) Magick Films was working on a project called "A Regular Frankie Fan", described it as "a unique look into the colorful world of fans of the `Rocky Horror Picture Show'" (yes, that means YOU!!) ... and showed us an initial cut in October 2000. This year, they released "A Regular Frankie Fan" on both VHS and DVD, and included "bonus" footage from our Hollywood convention! They also held a full blown "Premiere Party" at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, where we performed a couple of numbers and then partied with them at a club nearby. You can pick up a copy for yourself in the lobby, or get your copy on-line at www.rockystore.com. |
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For the second year running,
Midnight Insanity made a special
appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con.
The first year was an exercise in attempting
to fit everyone into one tiny room, only to
have to quickly move ~500 people into the
"big" hall on short notice. This year they
were prepared for us, and M.I. performed
Rocky for nearly 800 eager fans, including
guests from "Crazed Imaginations"
(Encinitas, CA), "The Bawdy Caste" (Menlo
Park, CA), "A Jump to the Left" (Tucson,
AZ), and even "The Vicarious Theater
Company" (Seattle, WA), and of course Rob,
who has now twice flown in all the way from
New Jersey to perform Riff with us!!
After the 1999 Denver Rocky Horror
con (and the suckiest hotel known to man),
there were many, many reasons to never
return there ... least of all to do Rocky
Horror. Last year, however, the folks out
there were putting together a huge Rocky
Horror performance at the "Red Rocks
Ampitheatre", and they asked us to
perform. Thus, Steve (Frank) and Bill (Brad)
flew out to Denver to join "Colorado's Elusive
Ingredient" and perform a single show, on a
Tuesday (July 10th), fighting through
torrential rains, lightning, thunder, floods
and even hailstones, to make it to the
stage. Despite all that, the show was still
an immense success with an "official"
headcount of about 2,600, and an
"unofficial" guess of nearly 6,000 ... due to
all the ticket-takers fleeing from the storm.
If you saw the pics, you'd have fled, too!!
In October 2001, Rocky Horror fans congregated in Orlando, Florida for the convention known as "Rocky Horror Vacations". This was truly a fabulous |
convention, complete with special guest Sue
Blane, the costume designer for both Rocky
Horror and Shock Treatment!! Steve and
Bill performed again, though this time as
"Riff" and "Brad". Although this ended up
being a smaller-than-usual con (due to no
fault by the planning committee), it made
for a very "cozy" convention, where you really
got a chance to meet everyone there. We
also got to terrorize the folks down at
Universal's "Halloween Horror Nights", and
learned that them street-spooks really hate
Rocky people ... `cause we scared them
more than they scared us!!
I honestly don't think M.I. could have
asked for a better year. 2001 proved to be
a truly record breaking year for us, with over
7000 of you in attendance!! Our "Frankie
Goes to Hollywood" convention exceeded our
wildest expectations, and *nobody* could
have predicted that one day we'd have our
faces on the cover of a DVD ("A Regular
Frankie Fan") that's being sold in stores
around the nation!! As we look forward to
2002, we don't know what the year will bring,
but it will never dissapoint us as long as all
of you are here!!
Midnight Insanity would like to thank the Art Theatre, for allowing us to perform here *every fucking week*; the good folks at Hof's Hut, for giving us our room with a view; Pat Quinn, Bob Simon, Cassandra Peterson and Sal Piro for joining us in June; Magick Films, for ... well, everything :-); everyone who pitched in for the Red Cross donations drive ... all said and done our total donations exceeded $2000 for the 9/11 disaster relief fund ... you guys ROCK!!; and of course, all of you wild, wacky, freaky folks who come down to Time Warp with us *every fucking week* ... and strip down to show us your skivvies, every fucking month!! :-) |