This history of the RHPS
... would later be best known for his role of Mayor Randall Winston in ABC's "Spin City." Partially filming at an ancient castle used by Charles DeGaulle in WWII, the production crew demonstrated a remarkable ability to use limited resources effectively. With great hopes, the movie opened on September 26, 1975. With the exception of Los Angeles, where the play had done well, it was a commercial and critical flop. Low attendance figures came in from across America, but so did an interesting observation: Of the few people who saw the movie, it seemed that the same people kept coming back time and again. All formal attempts to advertise and hype the show failed, but word of mouth was delivering a growing core group of patrons with regularity. Trying to find times where they could show this box-office dud, recoup losses on the investment, and not frighten away more conservative customers, theatre owners eventually moved it to the midnight time slot. A legend and cult had just been born. The first true midnight show was at New York's Waverly theater on April 1, 1976. Both costume-clad audience members and audience callback lines owe their genesis to this night. RHPS lore holds that the first ever callback came from this theatre as Janet covered her head from the rain with a newspaper, an anonymous voice rang out in the darkness; "Buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch!" Soon thereafter a movie-perfect Frank, in the person of Dori Hartley, began to prowl the aisles of the Waverly. A cast soon took shape, and more lines were coined. The second key name of the original phenomenon was Sal Piro, founder and still president of the RHPS fan club. As is the case with most RHPS casts, the Waverly folks varied widely in age and occupation. Professionals and students, teachers and laborers, forty-something's and teenagers. Though RHPS would become known more as a traditional venue for fun as it approached it's third decade, it's initial years were as a symbol of liberation and escape from stuffy sexual norms. Wild stories are still told of the Studio-54-style drug and sex scene that pervaded the late-70s, along with Gay Liberation and a generally apathetic culture. It has been suggested that the tremendous success of RHPS in Japan is due to an inner desire of many Japanese people to break free of a conformist society. Some initial excesses were soon curbed by theater owners who had grown tired of repairing damaged screens. Today it is rare to find a theatre that will allow such audience props like rice, hot dogs or water pistols. RHPS continued to grow in the 1980s, spreading across America and the rest of the world. Casts were established in several small towns that seemed unlikely spots for Rocky, like Bozeman, Mont. and Ames, Iowa. In the larger cities, it was not uncommon for Rocky to begin sho...