THE ROCKY HORROR IMPROV SHOW to Debut at Unexpected Productions

More than 50 years after The Rocky Horror Show first invited audiences to give themselves over to absolute pleasure, a Seattle theater company is taking its spirit somewhere even its creators could not have predicted: completely off script.

This October, Unexpected Productions presents The Rocky Horror Improv Show, a late-night, fully improvised rock musical inspired by the camp, rebellious energy, sexuality and gleeful theatrical excess associated with the cult phenomenon. Rather than recreating scenes, characters or songs from Rocky Horror, the ensemble uses audience suggestions to create an entirely original musical every night, complete with new characters, storylines and songs performed with a live band.

Performances take place at Unexpected Productions’ Market Theater at the Gum Wall in Pike Place Market throughout October.

The production began almost by accident. Director Dan Posluns first experimented with Rocky Horror as a genre during Unexpected Productions’ theatrical mash-up show Playborhood.

“I pitched Rocky Horror as a genre to the Playborhood director, and the show was just completely wild,” Posluns recalls. “It was raucous and hilarious, and it was clear from the performance that there was meat on the bone for a fully realized show.”

That experiment eventually became The Rocky Horror Improv Show.

Unlike a screening, stage revival or traditional shadow-cast production, the show does not reproduce material from the original stage musical or film. Instead, the performers borrow its heightened theatrical vocabulary and use it as the launching point for something new.

“If you squint at it, maybe it has the same shape or outline as Rocky Horror, but with entirely new characters, stories and songs that are made up on the spot,” Posluns says.

That means anything can happen. One performance might strand a pair of lovers in a mysterious castle. Another could send them aboard a submarine, into an office building or somewhere no one in the theater has imagined until an audience member suggests it. Even the production’s flamboyant mad-scientist archetype is reinvented from performance to performance, complete with a new identity and new schemes.

What carries over is the spirit.

“Rocky Horror has stayed relevant for more than 50 years because it’s fearless, transgressive and deeply fun,” Posluns says. “Each generation rediscovers it, and it continues to speak to people personally, reaching out from outside of society’s norms.”

That sense of freedom also changes the way the ensemble approaches improvisation.

“As improvisers, we often play close to reality, but this show gives us license to smash conventions with a baseball bat,” Posluns says. “There’s this moment when you realize your imagination is nothing compared to the imaginations of nine improvisers. The show doesn’t just work. It soars beyond anything you dreamed.”

Audience participation remains central, although longtime Rocky Horror fans should not expect the familiar shouted callbacks of a midnight screening. Instead, spectators provide the ideas that become the raw material for the evening’s characters, locations and story. What follows exists only for that performance.

This year’s production expands the show both musically and theatrically, with a larger cast, an expanded live band, body microphones, elaborate costumes and Unexpected Productions’ newly upgraded sound system.

“We’ve got more performances, a bigger cast, a bigger band and a brand-new sound system so we can rock out even harder than before,” Posluns says.

The result occupies an unusual space between improv comedy, musical theater, rock concert and late-night cult spectacle, while tapping into the same sense of communal permission that has kept Rocky Horror alive across generations.

And the production makes no attempt to tame its source of inspiration for polite company.

“Let’s just say we made it a late show for a reason,” Posluns says. “This isn’t the kind of improv you’ll want to bring your grandmother to, unless your grandmother happens to be exceptionally cool.”

Asked to describe the production in three words, Posluns offers an even simpler invitation:

The Rocky Horror Improv Show

• Where: Unexpected Productions’ Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley at the Gum Wall in Pike Place Market, Seattle
• Performances:
• October 3, 10, 17, 23, 24 and 30 at 11:30 p.m.
• October 31 at 9:30 p.m.
• Age: 18+
• Price: $ 15- $ 20