![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Rocky_Horror_0108r.jpg\" "\\"Review")
<\/a>The cast of \u201cThe Rocky Horror Show.\u201dPhoto by Joan Marcus<\/p>\nThe visual imagination continues throughout. The Sonic Transducer resembles a giant retro television set. During \u201cScience Fiction Double Feature,\u201d sculptural heads in the theater boxes spring to life as if joining the backup vocals. Later, the stage fills with candles, and Frank descends on a crescent moon during the floor show like a figure out of the Ziegfeld Follies. These flourishes, rooted in old-fashioned showmanship, give the evening a sense of constant discovery.<\/p>\n
A more complicated issue is how to handle its participatory culture. Audience callbacks are central to the more well-known film version, \u201cThe Rocky Horror Picture Show,\u201d which built its legacy through midnight screenings and ritualized interaction. But this is the stage musical, and what plays as gleeful chaos in a movie theater can overwhelm a live performance.<\/p>\n
The 2000 Broadway revival at Circle in the Square leaned fully into that chaos, encouraging talk-backs to the point that the line between show and event nearly vanished. This production takes a more measured approach, asking for restraint while acknowledging that some interaction is inevitable. The result is a negotiated middle ground, with familiar shout-outs surfacing tentatively, as if the audience is testing the limits. It never devolves into a free-for-all, yet it does not feel tightly controlled either. When it all clicks, it is a blast.<\/p>\n
As Brad and Janet, Andrew Durand and Stephanie Hsu provide a necessary anchor. Their performances, pitched with heightened sincerity, recall the earnest charm of Seymour and Audrey in \u201cLittle Shop of Horrors.\u201d Durand\u2019s clean-cut conviction contrasts effectively with the surrounding chaos, while Hsu shifts convincingly from prim innocence to liberated exuberance.<\/p>\n The evening\u2019s center of gravity, and arguably its main draw, is Luke Evans as Frank-N-Furter. Making his Broadway debut, Evans delivers a performance of commanding presence and unapologetic sexuality. He struts, prowls, and preens with assurance, fully inhabiting the character\u2019s mix of menace and allure. Vocally strong and physically controlled, he supplies the production\u2019s charge whenever it threatens to drift.<\/p>\n Not all of the casting choices land. Juliette Lewis, as Magenta, brings an offbeat, spacey quality but proves uneven vocally. Her performance of \u201cScience Fiction Double Feature,\u201d which opens the show, is off-tempo and uncertain, dulling its impact. Michaela Ja\u00e9 Rodriguez, as Columbia, feels off, slightly out of sync with the role\u2019s manic energy. These shortcomings are noticeable, but they do not derail the evening. By contrast, Amber Gray offers one of the evening\u2019s most fully realized performances, bringing an eerie physicality and vocal precision to Riff Raff.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777088198_610_Rocky_Horror_0184r.jpg\" "\\"Review")
<\/a>Photo by Joan Marcus<\/p>\n
![\"Rachel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777088199_96_Rocky_Horror_0083r.jpg\" "\\"Review")
<\/a>Rachel DratchPhoto by Joan Marcus<\/p>\n