Stage Right plans outdoor, circus sideshow-inspired 'Rocky Horror Show Live'

Get ready to do the time warp again.

Stage Right Theatre Company will stage “The Rocky Horror Show Live” under a big top tent on Oct. 23-24 and 30-31.

There will be a few pandemic-driven changes to the company’s long-running Halloween season production, including the outdoor venue, said director and Stage Right founder Tony Marino.

“What won’t change is the blast people are going to have,” he said.

The musical, based on the 1975 cult classic film, follows naive sweethearts Brad and Janet as they end up, thanks to a flat tire, in an eerie mansion peopled by mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter and a cast of other outré characters.

The 40-by-80-foot “glorious, giant circus tent” sheltering the production will be set up in Stage Right’s parking lot at 105 W. Fourth St., Greensburg.

“It was really important to us that if we were going to do this (that) we did it safely,” Marino said. “So the tent is huge and will have sides rolled up to provide airflow, (and) we are only selling 200 tickets per show.”

And where there’s a circus tent, there should be a circus atmosphere, he said.

Members of the show’s ensemble will be costumed as iconic sideshow and circus freak characters.

“That seems to fit 2020 more than anything,” Marino said. “More than being a Halloween staple, that seems to fit the intersection of where we are now.”

This will be the first time in more than 20 years that Marino and and his wife, Stage Right choreographer Renata Marino, will remain behind the scenes instead of taking to the stage.

Pandemic shutdown restrictions imposed by Actors Equity Association, of which they are members, leave them unable to perform, Marino said.

Great cast, good friends

Katherine Harkins, the actor playing Janet, said social distancing protocols also demanded that changes be made in choreographing her featured song, “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me.”

Performing the song without a lot of touching “really created some challenges,” she said.

Harkins said she wouldn’t have been able to take the role, if not for the pandemic. The Latrobe native graduated from Point Park University in May 2019 and soon moved to New York City to pursue a performing career.

Following the shutdown in March, she headed home.

“I expected to be coming home for two weeks to see my mom, but I’m still here,” she said. “It’s nice to come back to Stage Right. Not a lot of actors have a safe place to come back to during the pandemic, or any place at all to perform.

“It’s a really great cast and we’re all really good friends,” she added.

In addition to Harkins, the cast includes Kevin O’Leary, whom Marino calls “one of Stage Right’s most beloved Frank-N-Furters,” Anthony Marino Jr. as Brad, Anna Stewart as Columbia, Courtney Harkins as Magenta, Greg Keresten as Riff Raff, Nick Lenz as Eddie/Dr. Scott and newcomers Alex Podolinski as Rocky and Mike Hamilla as the Narrator. There are 15 members in the ensemble.

Each of the four performances will begin at 8 p.m.

“We won’t be having the much-loved midnight shows either, because of being in the middle of a neighborhood,” Marino said. “We didn’t want to being rocking the parking lot at 2 a.m.”

Attendees will be required to wear masks as they enter the tent and move to their seats; masks can be removed upon being seated. A nightly cash prize of $10 will be given to the guest wearing the best mask.

Hot dogs, pizza, snacks and sweet treats will be sold, along with The Lamp Theatre’s popcorn and beer from Marino’s American Eatery.

Reserved tickets in the first 10 rows are $25 each; general admission is $20.

Advance ticket purchase is recommended at 724-832-7464 or stagerightgreensburg.com.