Reid Reimers is busy when it’s Rocky Horror season. He’s the director and producer of the cult classic musical performed (nearly) each year at the Wilma. And he also plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the iconic “cross-dressing mad scientist” who is trying to create the perfect man: Rocky. With so much rehearsal in the week leading up to opening night, it takes about three attempts to set up an interview. When Reimers finally calls, he explains he was outside in his bathrobe spray painting his high-heels.
Reimers—who is also a popular pub trivia host and about-town emcee—started producing Rocky Horror Show Live in 2009 under the umbrella of the Montana Actors Theatre. And even with a few hiatuses and pandemic holdups, it has become a Halloween tradition in Missoula, where audience participation rules (though there are some rules).
Every year, Reimers says it’s a bit of a struggle to make sure everything is funded—the rights to the musical went up in cost more than usual this year, for instance. But Rocky is here! And in antici…pation (never gets old) of the upcoming performances on Friday and Saturday, we asked Reimers how he keeps Frank-N-Furter so fresh, where the hell they get their Rocky actors from, and why the show is an antidote to Montana’s anti-drag legislation.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
When we were setting up this interview, you mentioned that you wanted to talk about how Montana’s anti-drag legislation fits into this production.
I know that the anti-drag law was put on pause, at least enforcement of it was. But that was something we were kind of eyeing, honestly. I was like, “Hmm, I wonder how much of a stink anybody might raise?” Just between you and me and this is off the record, ma’am. (Editor’s note: Don’t worry.) I mean, somebody raising a big stink about us putting it on would be the best advertisement we could ever have.
I could see Missoula people coming out in force if some dumb law out of eastern Montana by conservative people tried to stop our fun little show. The problem is, we do have it as an all ages show. But I think it’s pretty important, just given the nature of the show, and how it’s about inclusivity and finding your place in the world. As stupid and silly as the show is, there is a really good message about that.
Wait, are we back on the record now?
Oh, yes. Sorry. I was actually just joking about being off the record. [Laughs.] Feel free to use whatever you’d like. It would be good advertising for us. I just think it’s really important, with all the anti-trans stuff out there floating around, and so many younger people kind of exploring their gender identity and sexuality. I think it’s pretty important that some high school kids could come down, or if a parent had, you know, a 13-year-old or something who they wanted to bring to the show. I can imagine it’d be pretty great for somebody who’s felt a little, you know, pooped on by society to walk into the Wilma and see a bunch of older folks breaking gender norms.
Not that any of it’s bad or totally explicit, but I do imagine some parents aren’t ready to explain the innuendo to their kids.
If our show was filmed and put on TV or in theaters right now, it would probably be able to pull a PG-13. Yeah, I think you’re right. There’s a couple bad words, and the midnight shows have some flesh in them. But it’s kind of important to me not to restrict that.
I had groups of kids from Hellgate High School putting their foot down with angry emails to me saying that they should be able to come to the show—that this is art and it’s a musical and we shouldn’t be censoring art. And I’m like, “You can. I don’t know why you thought you couldn’t.” That’s why it’s an all-ages show.
I think for some parents that might not really know how to deal with their kids who are on their own journeys of self expression, bringing them down to a show like this would definitely show some solidarity with their kiddo, even if they, the parents, don’t have the words to talk about it.
Tell us about the cast this year.
We have a lot of folks coming back. Jeff Medley is back as Riff Raff again this year. He and I are still part of the original cast from 2009. And we have a couple other tech folks that have worked on it every year with us as well. And then we have six other cast members for whom this is their fifth year, at least.
Every year we do open auditions, so we always end up with a bunch of fresh blood.
Our Rocky this year has never done anything on stage before, so that’s fun. It’s fun to have that kind of mix of folks. It keeps it fresh for us.
I’m curious about the process of you doing this for so long and how you sort of balance the casting, because Jeff is always Riff Raff and you are always Dr. Frank-N-Furter. And you guys are beloved in those roles, but what’s your thought process on that casting?
It’s hard. I am wearing so many hats: producer, director and actor. It’s become really important to me over the years. It took some learning to specifically switch those hats in my mind and not try to mix up stuff too much.
Jeff, for example, I know as a director as well as a producer. He’s beloved by this town. But he’s just a powerhouse on the stage and he just owns that role inside and out. So we have open auditions and I never, generally, tell him, “You’re absolutely gonna play Riff Raff again” until after auditions. But it would take a very special person to come in where I would be like, “Oh, you would be better at this role than Jeff.” And that’s how I feel about myself. I’m always open to getting a new Frank-N-Furter, just because it would be better for the show, overall, if I didn’t have to be trying to write notes while I’m walking around in a scene in my heels, you know?
I’m 41 now. I’ve been doing this thing for 14 years. It’s funny how the body kind of shifts and changes. We have had some folks who could honestly sing and dance circles around me. But they tended to be kind of young. And, in my mind, Frank-N-Furter is a little past his prime. That’s kind of a point to the story. And so even though somebody else might be an absolutely amazing performer, I don’t know if a 23-year-old necessarily has the chutzpah to go up there and own the stage and to have that kind of desperateness-to-stay-relevant that I think Frank-N-Furter brings to the show.
Tell me how you have evolved that character or how your feelings about him have changed.
Initially, I had not seen the movie when I got cast as Frank-N-Furter. So I thought the character was just like the white-wig, lab-coat guy that would make the monster. I had no idea. So when I was first asked to play the role back in 2009, I was told to watch the movie. And I put the movie on, and I was wondering where this doctor was. And then Tim Curry comes down the elevator and I was like, “Oh, shit.” I went out and got some heels the next day and just started practicing. But it’s interesting playing an iconic role like that. We don’t try to emulate the movie and I’ve honestly only watched it a couple times over the years. I think if we were trying to recreate the movie, I don’t think that is utilizing all the talent of all of our designers and all of our performers, to try to just imitate something, right? So we always go back to the original script. Over the years I’ve just become more and more comfortable that this is my Frank-N-Furter for our show.
But I still find new things all the time in certain lyrics. Some years I might be really trying to sing something out just to get that rock and roll feel. But later I’ll look over it and realize these lyrics actually have a little bit more depth behind them, so I adjust.
What are some things you’ve changed to adapt to current times?
There’s a shadow scene in the show that’s supposed to be very sexy, right? But now it just feels kind of icky because it’s kind of rapey. And it’s weird to be pretending to be someone in the dark doing something that is, I think, not as laugh-off-able as it seemed to be before. So this year we are trying something new and I think it’ll be pretty great. We decided to still do shadows, but use puppets. I don’t know. I think you just have that much more leeway with a puppet and be just a little more vulgar if it’s clearly puppets. But we still take out the sexual assault undertones of it. We don’t add anything, but we take out all the “Nos” and “Please” and “Stops.” And we turn some of Janet’s protests into something more sultry, like “Oh, you beast! You monster!,” which can be said in two very different ways. And we really try to focus on that nobody’s being forced or tricked into anything necessarily. She’s a little surprised, but then she talks about how Frank-N-Furter “drew me in.” And later, in her song, she says, “Frank’s kisses overwhelm me, and I just need it more and more.”
There are a lot of ’80s movies that have similar scenes where a woman is pushing someone away, but then she’s supposed to have enjoyed the encounter. If pure enjoyment is meant to be the outcome, let her enjoy it from the get-go, right? It can still be flirtatious and spicy. Why make it weird?
Yeah, it’s the bodice-ripper mentality. Like, “I must be ravaged, otherwise I’d be a slut.” She could just want it, too.
Also, for the last few years, I’ve given our Janets the opportunity at the very end of the show, during one of my favorite songs called “Superheroes,” a very haunting song, to decide whether they will walk off stage with Brad or go on and live her life—whether the Janets take their engagement ring off and give it to him and walk off alone and Brad would get pulled into the massive fog and phantoms and darkness.
For me, this is Janet’s story. She has the biggest character arc, and I think she did find—from being the cute little gal that wants to be a Mrs. Brad—a way to stand on her own and find her own sexual power. I feel more satisfied with it than trying to just make everything a big silly joke. There is a story there about loss of innocence and what it is to be normal and what it is to follow society’s expectations or to strike out on your own—society be damned.
On the Frank-N-Furter side, there’s the idea of, What does too much indulgence and hedonism lead to? He’s a bad guy. He smacks people around. He murders people and he gasses them and makes them perform for him, just for his own sick thrill. And so I think that there’s kind of a message there as well: Go out and do your thing, but make sure that your kink isn’t yucking someone else’s yum, if that makes sense.
It was kind of my impression that Rocky is usually somebody new to acting. Like you go find a bodybuilder from the university. Is that true?
The Rocky character is challenging because it’s all about his physique. Everything referenced to him is about his muscles. In the past, we were more than happy to just paint on some abs for someone, but having a great physique helps. Which, I guess, is different from any other part of the show.
The show is about inclusion, and so body type has never really mattered to me for any other role, except for Rocky, just because it kind of calls for it. So because of those physical challenges, it does tend to open up to folks that maybe have not performed in theater often. A couple years ago we had a guy from the university who was on the cheerleading team. He understood the idea of rehearsals and the importance of timing. But other times it’s just folks that are like, “Hey, I’ve worked on this bod and, um, this seems like fun.” We tend to end up with someone like that about half the time. I think because we have a lot of folks returning each year, we offer a really stable ground to new people. We just pull people right into our weird little dysfunctional family.
What do audiences—especially newcomers—need to know about etiquette and having fun?
We encourage people to get there early. Most of the seating is general admission and so that can be on the main floor or up in the balcony. We have a pre-show, a burlesque show, just to make sure that people’s time is used well. And then there’s a devirgination ceremony for people who have never been to the show before.
We do sell prop bags at the show and all the proceeds go directly to the cast and band and such. They’re $5 each and there are twenty items in them that you can use throughout the show at certain times. And they come with a little instruction sheet if you’ve never seen the show before.
Our Kinky Chorus that’s on stage the whole time do all of the prop things as well. So they’re kind of the leaders for the audience to follow. We strongly encourage callbacks. Every time Brad and Janet’s names are said, people shout rude things toward them. There’s a lot of inside jokes based on the lines from the show, and we fully encourage those. But we kind of just say, like, “Callbacks are great, but heckling is for assholes, like Brad.” (“Asshole” is what the audience traditionally yells when Brad’s name is said.) The 8 o’clock shows tend to be much more tame. The midnight shows tend to get pretty wild. But we do consider the audience to be the final member of our cast and we expect them to be participating and having tons of fun, even if they’re getting rowdy and maybe paying a little less attention. But we’re also always performing for those quieter folks that came to check out all of our hard work.
Because, this show is a lot of work. It takes a lot of people donating space for us to rehearse in. And we could make it easier by just doing the same damn thing every year. But we want to keep it fresh and fun for people who come back year after year. And it’s a huge financial risk. Every year we don’t really know if we even covered our costs until, frankly, kind of the beginning of the last show. But all that stuff being said, this is our kinky little love letter to Missoula.
The Montana Actors’ Theatre presents The Rocky Horror Show Live! Friday, October 27, and Saturday, October 28, with an early show each day at 8 PM and a late show each day at 11:59 PM. Find tickets here.
