Sweet Transvestite, We'll Miss You Rocky Horror Comes to the Chicago Theatre on Halloween
By Jason Salerno
There was always going to be a night when The Rocky Horror Picture Show felt different. This is
that night. On October 31st, the Chicago Theatre opens its doors to the greatest Halloween party in the
city's history — and also to something more: a celebration of a film, a community, and a man whose
performance at the center of it all changed queer culture forever. The Rocky Horror Picture Show brings
its 40-city "Spooktacular" Tour to Chicago on Halloween night, hosted by three of the film's original stars — Barry Bostwick, Nell Campbell,nand Patricia Quinn — and the evening will include a special tribute to the late, magnificent Tim Curry, who passed away on August 25th at the age of 80.
For fifty years, Rocky Horror has been a sanctuary for the queer community; a dark, glittering,
sequin-encrusted castle where gender was fluid, desire was celebrated, and no one was asked
to justify themselves. At the center of that castle stood Curry's Dr. Frank-N-Furter: fearless,
flamboyant, heartbreaking, and wholly, defiantly himself. For generations of LGBTQ fans who
found in that performance a mirror and a permission slip, losing him is losing something irreplaceable.
Halloween night at the Chicago Theatre will be a chance to remember and celebrate him, and to
remind ourselves what he gave us: together, in the dark, the way he always intended.
Bostwick, Campbell, and Quinn were with Curry just last September at the Academy Museum's 50th
anniversary celebration in Los Angeles, one of his final public appearances. They know what this
moment means. They will be there on October 31st to carry it. The evening will feature a live
performance of "Once in a While" by Bostwick — Brad's song from the original stage show, cut from the
film, rarely performed and genuinely beautiful. Hearing it live, on Halloween night, in the year the
world lost Tim Curry, will be an experience that transcends a standard screening. It is the kind of
moment that reminds you why this particular circus has kept running for fifty years.
The rest of the evening delivers everything a Rocky Horror Halloween should: the original,
unedited film screened alongside a live local Shadow Cast performing in sync on stage; the beloved audience rituals that have been passed down like scripture since 1975; and the "Spooktacular" Costume Contest, in which the audience becomes the show. Prizes go to the top three most spectacular creatures of the night. On Halloween. In Chicago. With all three original stars in the room. The competition will be extraordinary. Quinn, who once asked her agent what Rocky Horror was about
and was told "something to do with a circus," has been in that circus ever since. Campbell cannot quite
believe they're still doing this — and means that as the highest possible
compliment. And Bostwick has spent five decades making nerds cool and is very much not finished yet.
Together, on the night when the veil between worlds is thinnest, they will do what Rocky Horror has always done: gather the freaks, the dreamers, the fishnets-and-sequins faithful, and remind them that they are not alone. That they never were. That somewhere in a castle on a hill, Frank-N-Furter is still playing his theremin, still welcoming everyone inside. Don't dream it. Be it. Do it for Tim.
VIP tickets including meetand-greet access with Bostwick, Campbell, and Quinn, plus photo
opportunities and premium seating are available now alongside general admission.
For tickets and information, visit www.scottstander.com/rocky.html
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