Rocking Broadway

"We had a 'Rocky Horror' Night at Princeton. It was in the Wilson dining hall. That was freshman year, I think," Jordan Roth '97 recalls. Not altogether an unusual memory. Most college students have probably experienced the phenomenon that is "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," whether it be in a dining hall, a movie theater or on late-night VH1.

But unlike most fans of the movie, who are content to merely time-warp along with Tim Curry or yell "Slut!" when Susan Sarandon appears on the screen, Roth is taking the "Rocky Horror" experience to a whole new level. He is the producer of this season's hottest Broadway offering—"The Rocky Horror Show," live on stage.

"The show we're doing is not just 'The Rocky Horror Show.' It's 'The Rocky Horror Show' and the 'Rocky Horror' phenomenon, all at once," says Roth of his production. Unlike with most Broadway shows, at "Rocky" the audience is encouraged to talk back to the actors. Audience participation kits, consisting of props like those used at many movie screenings—plus a red feather boa—are sold in the lobby along with the standard t-shirts, and the evening closes with an everybody-get-up-and-dance encore of "The Time Warp."

Reinventing "Rocky," however, requires a lot more than a handful of confetti and some black fishnets. Roth previously produced "The Donkey Show," an off-Broadway disco musical based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that opened in Summer '99, and is now also playing in London.

"That show's all music, and it's all music that you know. It's all disco hits. So from the get-go, everybody was singing along," Roth says of "The Donkey Show." He eventually got in touch with the people who controlled the licensing of "The Rocky Horror Show," and talked to them about "a 'Donkey Show' model for 'Rocky.'"

" 'Rocky' has never had a success on stage in the States," Roth said. "Over the years, people have tried to mount productions, and they have never really come to fruition. I think the rights holders were anxious that the production that came to the States had to be an event. And particularly, the production that came to New York had to be a New York event. And so I think what interested them about my kind of work is that it would be building on the idea of an underground hipster thing, rather than trying to 'rock up' a Broadway show."

To this effect, the current Broadway cast ranges from Tony Award nominees and winners — such as Jarrod Emick (Brad), Alice Ripley (Janet) and Daphne Rubin-Vega (Magenta) – to TV's Dick Cavett (The Narrator) and rock star Joan Jett (Columbia). Rounding out the eclectic group are Tom Hewitt (Frank 'N Furter), Lea DeLaria (Eddie/Dr. Scott), Raul Esparza (Riff Raff), Sebastian LaCause (Rocky) and a group of scantily-clad "Phantoms" who act as a chorus.

"Musically, it's the Broadway sound of Brad and Janet walking into the rock sound of the aliens," said Roth.

Roth says that one of the motivating forces behind his production is to reach out to audiences beyond the traditional Broadway theatergoers. "You walk into that theater, and there are people who are not there because it's a Broadway musical, and they have to go see a Broadway musical. There are people who are there because it's 'Rocky,' and they have to see 'Rocky.' Or because it's Joan Jett, and they have to see Joan Jett. Or it's Dick Cavett. Whatever brings them there, there's a large percentage every night who are not there because they were looking for a Broadway musical. This is totally gratifying to me."

"From the beginning, we were trying very hard to break Broadway etiquette rules. You wouldn't think to walk into a Broadway theater and sing along with the actors or shout back at them," he continued. "God forbid, you'd be arrested. People shoot daggers at you when you open a candy, let alone stand up and dance. So we knew that if ['Rocky'] was going to work, we'd have to break people of that kind of ingrained shame."

"So I love that people come to the theater, and they're taking pictures – which is a big no-no and one that we have to keep to, because it's illegal. But they're doing it not because of anything malicious, just because Broadway is not where they generally go. They go to rock concerts, they go to sporting events, they go to any number of other kinds of entertainment activities."

"Rocky" is the first show which Roth has produced on Broadway. But despite the intimidation level of being a young producer doing your first high-profile show, he says that the reactions overall have been encouraging. "Everyone has been very welcoming in the theater community," he said. "People have responded really well to the show, and to the fact that I did the show. There is an establishment, but I think that the establishment is made up of individuals who love theater, and love finding new people who love theater."

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

While at Princeton, Roth was an actor. He specialized in what he calls "Sturm und Drang" theater. "I only wanted to do super-serious drama where I could die, or commit suicide or be in a concentration camp," he said. "[College] is such a time of discovery. It makes sense to me now why I was so intent on doing these dramas. Because you get to sort of churn up these feelings that you want to explore and think about."

His feelings about the purpose of theater have changed since then. "Now it's about something else," he said. "Now it's about fabulous entertainment. And running a business."

Despite the different role which theater now plays in his life, Roth feels that Princeton prepared him well for the theater world. "All of my classmates, actually, my kind of group of people that I did theater with, so many of them have continued in the business in various ways," he said. "I feel that we all got this wonderful feeling from each other, and from the work that we did together, and then from our academic experience, that we can do what we want to do. And that we can make it happen."

"I think that has a lot to do with the way the theater experience is structured at Princeton," he continued. "Which is that it's not a conservatory. It's totally student-driven, really. Yes, there is the Program [in Theater and Dance], but for the most part, I think [the theater experience] is designed to be strongly extracurricular. And I perceive that to be a very specific choice, and I think the right one. Because that's what it's about when you get out. You know, if you want to do theater, you've got to make it happen. You cannot sign up for "the Broadway course" and get there."

"And so I see a whole bunch of us emerged from that experience with this determination to make it happen for ourselves. You know, you get a bunch of people, you get a space, and you do a show. And you keep doing it, and the shows get bigger, and the audiences get bigger and the profile gets bigger. And then you look back, and you've had a career."

And with "Rocky," Roth is well on the way to having that career.