Live ‘Rocky Horror’ shadow cast returns to Circle Drive-In in Dickson City on Oct. 30
Back by popular demand, local “Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadow cast Sweet Translucent Dreams will return to the Circle Drive-In Theatre in Dickson City just before Halloween on Friday, Oct. 30.
Last month, Sweet Translucent Dreams packed the place as this quirky classic film celebrated its 45th anniversary across the country with screenings at drive-in theaters and pop-up venues as well as a new special edition Blu-ray. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” premiered in Los Angeles on Sept. 26, 1975, and while it wasn’t initially a hit, it slowly developed a cult following until it became the midnight movie phenomenon it is today.
The STD cast continues to sell out drive-ins this season, so expect this event to be as popular as the “Time Warp.” This year, the group performed at Fair Oaks Drive-in Theatre in Middletown, New York alongside special guest Barry Bostwick, who played Brad Majors in the original movie.
Gates at the Circle Drive-In (1911 Scranton/Carbondale Hwy., Dickson City) open at 6 p.m., and the show starts around 9 p.m. Tickets, which are $25 per carload (up to six passengers per vehicle), are on sale now via Ticketleap. A list of props and what attendees should do with them can be found here.
Costumes are optional, but masks are required. The cast, who will perform while the movie is projected on the big screen, will be selling prop bags for $2 and T-shirts for $10-$25.
That same night, actor Dan Yeager, who played Leatherface in the 2013 film “Texas Chainsaw 3D,” will meet fans and sign autographs from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. before the Circle plays that movie at midnight following “Rocky Horror.”
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” plot summary reads:
On a wild and rain-swept late-November evening, somewhere at an empty stretch of road outside Ohio’s merry Denton, blissfully-affianced, prudish, boringly-innocent young pair Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) find themselves stranded on their way to visit an ex-tutor. Instead, the couple will inadvertently unearth the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s (Tim Curry’s) spooky lair of inexhaustible oddities, just in time to partake in the out-of-this-world mad scientist’s proud unveiling of his latest, delightfully extravagant, most daring creation – the ultimate male and the perfect sex symbol – the flaxen-haired Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood). But, little by little, as the effervescent transgressive force gobbles up whole the unsuspecting visitors of the night, Brad and Janet slowly begin to embrace the potent fascinations of seduction, while an idolized Rocky roams free in the mansion. Who can interrupt man’s union with the absolute pleasure?
Rotten Tomatoes says, “‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ brings its quirky characters in tight, but it’s the narrative thrust that really drives audiences insane and keeps ’em doing the time warp again.”
Formed in late 2002 in Pottsville, Sweet Translucent Dreams began as a melting pot of several “Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadow casts – Transylvanian Nipple Productions from Philadelphia, Sins of the Flesh from Allentown, and The Transsexual Misfits from Maryland – and eventually became Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley’s own premier shadow cast, performing in theaters, fire halls, bowling alleys, bars, colleges, churches, drive-ins, and outdoors across Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.
While going through various iterations over the years, adding members from other shadow casts while recruiting new actors, the group is still going strong as they play to hundreds and even thousands of midnight movie fans every year. Sweet Translucent Dreams regularly performs at the ArtsQuest Center at the SteelStacks in Bethlehem and the Emmaus Theatre and continues to travel to wherever fans of the film will gather.
