Con Story Part IV: ACMRH The Musical
It's been a while since our cast (whose name and composition has varied over the years, but is currently the
Transylvanian Concubines of Fairfax, VA) has done a preshow at a convention, due to time constraints, lack of motivation, or simply not enough cast members in attendance.
Q and I only attended the Saturday afternoon portion of the last convention (Atlantic City, 2008) at the last minute; and, if I recall correctly, the two of us were the only members of our cast to attend the Chicago convention in 2006 (and so on, and so on). We decided that we wanted to do something new and different; it wasn't simply enough to do one of our preshows that hadn't been seen on the national level yet (although we do want to show off our First Nudie Preshow sometime), we wanted to create something brand new for the occasion.
Q had the idea of making a musical (I thought we should have called it a "rock opera") about the old Rocky Horror newsgroup on usenet (alt.cult-movies.rocky-horror). We brainstormed on topics - I insisted that one of the songs had to be "The Next Rocky Horror", about Repo!, Showgirls, et al., for instance - and then
Q wrote most of the songs with her band
Glasgow Tunnel (Tim and
Katy) with additional lyrics and vocals by
Σοφωκλεσ and
Skanky. (I offered some additional input, which was occasionally even used; but only played a minor part in the audio production since I can't sing or play an instrument.)
Once the music was finished, recorded, mixed, and edited, it was my turn to get serious. I produced the list of all off-topic obituaries ever posted to the newgroup (one of the many issues that rent the group) which
Q assembled (from Google image searches) in chronological order; she also assembled the other montages. (We made a long list of movies that qualified as "the next Rocky Horror", but couldn't fit all of them. Many, like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, got left out; but I insisted that Batman had to stay. The convention montage was made entirely from pictures I took at previous conventions.) I created all of the animations for the computer startup sequence, the desktop, and all of the fake inside-joke newsgroup posts. My utility,
Allah Sulu's Massive Tool, played a large part in the animation process (and was plugged in the animation).
We rehearsed it a bit at home in Maryland, and in our room at the convention; but some of the performance still consisted of on-the-spot ad libs (like my decision to stick balloons in my shirt so that I'd have huge fake boobs for the verse about Showgirls. I spend about fifteen minutes combing the floor of the convention hall looking for two balloons that were the same size and shape.
Cosmo wondered what the hell I was doing, but I didn't explain.) Since the whole thing was so inside-jokey, we expected it to go over many peoples' heads, and only appeal to the old timers - we were all pleasantly shocked by how well it was received. Flush with success,
Q wants to write a real, full-length musical now.
This is the video we created and burned to a DVD to be played at the convention on the screen behind us as we performed and lip-synched on stage. Not counting the curtain call reprise of "Last Rocky Horror", the preshow itself is just under ten minutes long. Because Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker was being a bitch, we were still trying to get this finished on the day we left Maryland for Ohio (in fact, we were out the door - about an hour behind schedule - as soon as we finally got the movie made and burned.
This video of our preshow performance was shot at the convention by
Shawn Stutler. You can hear people reacting to various inside jokes on the screen, but you'll have to watch the other video to the left if you want to see what those jokes are. (You'll also need to watch that video to hear the overture at the beginning, or the verse about Repo! which got booed because of the heavily anti-Repo! sentiment at the convention.) Naturally, I thought of many better injokes to use after it was too late...
Click to view
"ACMRH The Musical" tells the story of a newbie (played by
Σοφωκλεσ) who connects to the newsgroup for the first time. He is greeted first by a friendly moderator (
Dawn, even though the newsgroup is completely unmoderated) who gives him a flame-proof suit. We were originally going to construct a fake cardboard prop for Soph's computer, until we realized that a couple of us were bringing real computers with us to the convention… so
Jason donated his (with suitable threats of death if anything happened to it) for use in the show. Note that Dawn is wearing an official alt.cult-movies.rocky-horror t-shirt; these were made and sold in 1995 before the twentieth anniversary convention in Hollywood so that those of us on the newsgroup would be able to identify each other in real life.
Soon, "the Newbie" becomes embroiled in all of the drama (other newsgroup people were played by
Q,
Skanky,
Jason, and myself). Skanky was the designated asshole/troll of the group, except for "In Memoriam" where I insisted on being the one to deliver my patented troll to the obituary whores. We all wore masks, since people are faceless on the internet, and are represented by what they say, not how they look.
The masks came off for the convention segment, where we pretended we were at an actual convention and away from the computers. A montage of convention scenes played on the screen as we pretended to drink, grope, party, and generally have loud, boisterous fun. We were all drinking water out of liquor bottles, as opposed to the rest of the convention when we were drinking liquor out of water bottles.
"In Memoriam", where we got to see all of the dead people the newsgroup cried crocodile tears over, while I asked "What Transylvanian did he play again?"
"The Next Rocky Horror" was the song which focused on other movies which have received the "Rocky Horror treatment". It's not really such a bad thing when a cast or convention decide to do something different for variety (Shock Treatment, at the very least, appears at almost every convention; and this convention also featured Phantom of the Paradise); but tempers tend to rise when filmmakers or studios try to "create" a cult movie with midnight showings, hired people in costumes, etc. Repo! the Genetic Opera is only the most recent example of this. The song focused on Showgirls, Sound of Music, and Repo! (three examples of forced attempts at cult movies) while the montage on the screen displayed other movies which have been performed with a live floorshow cast.
The Chicago people laughing hysterically to see Batman (the 1966 Adam West movie) included in the montage.
Finally, in disgust, the Newbie ends up killfiling all of the other newsgroup posters (who freeze in the statue poses from the end of Rocky Horror) and then walking away. The final shot on his computer screen is "404 SITE NOT FOUND".
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janetmajors
EDIT: Trivia- the only place on the recording where you can clearly hear my voice is when I asked "Are you in a cast?" (as "Todd Majors") at about 1:30.