The Rocky Horror Show

Once upon a time on a distant planet, two best friends who loved to sing and dance sat down at a ramen shop. There, they planned the most explosive, most exuberant, most entertaining musical of all time.

Four years later, this production of THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW is finally coming to the Wright State Directing Lab!

Senior Acting Majors Benjamin Smallwood (he/him) and Ricky Yannotti (he/him) gabbed for an entire night their freshman year about their love for this cult classic musical, and now all of those ideas are coming to life! Ricky is a veteran of the show, having been in multiple productions and spent time with different companies and versions. Combine that with Ben, a longtime member of the Columbus theatre scene and a rock’n’roll aficionado, you get two pretty amazing team captains! With their excitement and passion for the material, they’ve put together a dream team of a company:

Julian Goldenstein- They/Them

Fiona Finneran- They/Them

Taylor Greny- She/Her

Sara Ashleigh Tuohy- She/Her

Claire Northcut- She/Her

Aidan Edwards- He/Him

Gavin O’Meara- He/They

Meghan Hohman- She/Her

Desmond Kingston- He/ Him

Cait Lightbody- She/They

Tommy Thams- He/Him

James Newton- He/Him

Skye Hodgkin- She/ They

Toby Hattemer- He/Him

Julia Dipaolo- She/Her

This cast and crew represents the sophomore, junior, and senior classes in Wright State’s Creative Arts Center. The joy and enthusiasm in the rehearsal room is bubbling over every day! Not only that, this show is an opportunity for members of the cast and the audience to come into a space and be authentically, joyfully themselves. This show is a celebration of queerness and a destruction of the binary—a big, raucous party that anyone can come to and have the time of their life.

So, how can you help us do the time warp again?

We want to be as transparent as possible and give a clear breakdown of what your financial help is going to! Rights for full length musicals are an expensive little thing. In particular, the rights for this show are over $1,200. In addition to that, we have a very large cast! We want to make sure we have sufficient funds to costume all of our performers in a way that makes each and every one of them feel confident and powerful. Great, now we have some fantastically costumed individuals! How will we hear them? And where will they go? Funding for microphones and set dressing is a necessity. We also have some people we want to be able to compensate properly, like a piano accompanist for our live pit.

At the end of the day, we hope you consider this: The Rocky Horror Show brings people joy. The spaces where this show has been performed, whether as a full musical or as a shadow-cast of the film, have been and continue to be spaces where individuals of all identities and backgrounds can come to feel alive. This is a passion project, and with your help it can be absolutely magical.

Don’t dream it—be it