Audience Participation

Please note that it is considered very bad etiquette to throw something onto the stage, it could mean that the show is cancelled and a thousand fans turn on you in an instance!

Audience Participation started back in the 1970’s in the USA and made it over to the UK a few years later. Originally only for the movie, the ‘AP’ has become a part of the stage show as well. Fans have been dressing up, shouting back lines and singing along to the show for thirty years now.
 
Audience Participation should always be complementary to the show, never just shouting out lines for the hell of it.
 
There are hundreds of talk-back lines that have been used over the years, and more are created by the audience at every show. There is no such thing as a definitive Audience Participation script as often call back lines are topical – Rocky being called a Pokemon worked in May 2000, but isn’t so funny now. To paraphrase the great philosopher Roger Rabbit, ‘it only works if its funny’.
 
It should be noted that many lines that are used at the film screenings don’t translate to the stage productions. Shouting ‘where’s your neck?’, for instance, to every narrator just doesn’t work as, unlike Charles Gray in the film, most do seem to have one.
 


 

Etiquette

"Etiquette?" I hear you cry – "at a show with the principle of ‘Don’t dream it, be it?’". Yep, there still are a few things to bear in mind when you are partaking in the Rocky experience.

The idea of Rocky Horror participation is to have fun, not disrupt the show. The following guidelines will help you and the other members of the audience to enjoy the show to the maximum pleasure level.
 

1. If you are dressing up for the show, don’t criticize other people’s costumes. Everyone has the right to wear whatever they wish. Some people make carbon-copies of the stage costumes, others take a more abstract approach. Some don’t dress up at all.

2. Talk-back lines should be used to add to the Rocky experience, don’t try to shout down other people, they might know some better lines, the best lines are the unexpected., especially if the cast start to giggle!

3. Don’t throw rice or water at the performers, spotlights or screen. In fact, don’t throw them all. It may be dangerous and may result in the show being halted.

4. Have fun!