Time Warp Taiwan’s production of Rocky Horror Picture Show returns this weekend to Taipei. The group has been putting on the popular stage play, which involves actors performing in front of a film screening of the 1975 cult hit, since 2015. It resumed in October last year since it paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lan Li (藍璃) is the new director, and also plays the character Magenta.
“Now that we’re getting out of COVID times,” the American performer said, “the audience doesn’t have to wear a mask and it can be more open and free.”
Photo courtesy of Time Warp Taiwan
Her partner and co-director Outy Yang (楊許秀樹) plays Riff Raff.
“I feel very related to the character, ever since I saw the movie,” he said. “He’s always in the background, but he’s the master planner.”
Now that the show is back to its regular format, Yang hopes that people will travel from abroad once again to see their show.
Photo courtesy of Time Warp Taiwan
The satirical musical is about conservative couple Brad and Janet, who find themselves lost in a mysterious castle. Servants Riff Raff and Magenta lead them through a seductive night, as singing mad scientist Frank-N-Furter creates a Frankenstein-esque perfect man known as Rocky. More comedy than horror, the story satirizes B-movie tropes and has had a large fan base over many decades.
Several new cast members have joined this production, across multiple backgrounds from South America to Europe and all over Asia.
“I wanted a diverse cast, and for people to feel welcomed no matter how they identify or their sexuality,” Li said. “Because the theme of the show is to encourage people to be themselves.”
Photo courtesy of Time Warp Taiwan
The titular Rocky is played by drag king Tan Liting (陳立婷) from Singapore — credited under the stage name Uncle Southside. The criminologist, a role that serves as the narrator, is played by Antonella Gismundi from Italy. “I play a male,” she said. “But we are gender-bending the character, which I think is an interesting spin. I didn’t want to dress up as a man, but [wanted to] play it as femme and even sexy.”
Expect racy fashion from the actors, as well as dancing and lots of laughs. Audience participation is a tradition at Rocky Horror Picture Show, with those in the seats encouraged to shout obscenities at the actors. Future shows are scheduled for October during Halloween/Pride weekend, and another in November in Taichung for the local Pride event there. Time Warp Taiwan plans to do at least three shows a year.
Saturday at 8:30pm at Taipei Shin Kong Cinemas (台北獅子林新光影城) 4F, 36 Xining S Rd, Taipei City (台北市西寧南路36號4樓).
Photo courtesy of Time Warp Taiwan
The show is for adults only. Tickets are NT$650 and can be purchased through twrhps.kktix.cc. For more information, please visit facebook.com/timewarptaiwan.
Photo courtesy of Time Warp Taiwan
Photo courtesy of Time Warp Taiwan
Yesterday, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominated legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) as their Taipei mayoral candidate, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) put their stamp of approval on Wei Ping-cheng (魏平政) as their candidate for Changhua County commissioner and former legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has begun the process to also run in Changhua, though she has not yet been formally nominated. All three news items are bizarre. The DPP has struggled with settling on a Taipei nominee. The only candidate who declared interest was Enoch Wu (吳怡農), but the party seemed determined to nominate anyone
In a sudden move last week, opposition lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) passed a NT$780 billion special defense budget as a preemptive measure to stop either Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) or US President Donald Trump from blocking US arms sales to Taiwan at their summit in Beijing, said KMT heavyweight Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), speaking to the Taipei Foreign Correspondents Club on Wednesday night in Taipei. The 76-year-old Jaw, a political talk show host who ran as the KMT’s vice presidential candidate in 2024, says that he personally brokered the deal to resolve
What government project has expropriated the most land in Taiwan? According to local media reports, it is the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, eating 2,500 hectares of land in its first phase, with more to come. Forty thousand people are expected to be displaced by the project. Naturally that enormous land grab is generating powerful pushback. Last week Chen Chien-ho (陳健和), a local resident of Jhuwei Borough (竹圍) in Taoyuan City’s Dayuan District (大園) filed a petition for constitutional review of the project after losing his case at the Taipei Administrative Court. The Administrative Court found in favor of nine other local landowners, but
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its sock puppet, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), passed their version of the government’s proposed supplementary defense spending bill last week, engendering much commentary. While all eyes were on the defense budget, the PRC’s assault on Taiwan was advancing on other fronts. The removal of domestic drone production and other technologies critical to the nation’s asymmetrical defenses from the list of items purchased in the “compromise” bill shows how the KMT-TPP alliance appears to be serving the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Ironically, the cuts will impact industries heavily represented by tech firms in areas run
RSS