Some came in hot pants, fishnets, towering high heels, thick eyeliner, lacy corsets. Others went more idiosyncratic: wearing a giant turtle shell straight out of a “Super Mario” game, Spider-Man spandex, goat horns, a peacock feather vest, a shark suit.
他们在旧金山在万圣节,所以过路人sby looking in through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts might not have paid them much notice. But these were no regular spooky revelers. They were responding to an open call for “The Rocky Horror Show” at American Conservatory Theater.
This open call — for which hopefuls had been instructed to bring their “superpower” and encouraged to wear Halloween costumes — marked the first time the city’s flagship nonprofit theater has opened an audition to the general public in at least 20 years, according to longtime employees.
Director and co-choreographer Sam Pinkleton (perhaps best known to Bay Area audiences as the choreographer for“Soft Power”) describes open calls as his preferred mode of auditions. For this show, only one role has been precast; music director Ada Westfall will play the role of Columbia while she directs the band inthe campy musical about the orgiastic encounter between a normie hetero couple and a mad scientist, an artificial muscle man, a zombie and more.
Speaking at ACT’s offices in advance of the open call, Pinkleton expresses deep consciousness of what it means to make a “Rocky Horror” specifically for San Francisco — with our legacy of late-night showings of the film at the Strand (now one of ACT’s venues) and the Clay, with our rich traditions of drag and gender fluidity and transgressive performance art — when he himself is a visitor to the city.
“Everybody in theater likes to talk about how we’re representing the world that we want to see, and that’s a very beautiful idea, but it takes muscle. It takes rigor. You can’t just say, ‘We’re making a show that represents San Francisco,’ and then you’re there. That’s not going to happen.”
“I want to make a show for the folks that we meet,” he says. Pinkleton has “hunches” of what he wants but no rigid, grand vision. “I just want to find people who, like, feel perfect — whatever ‘perfect’ means.”
He wanted to encourage aspirants to be themselves, not what they thought ACT might want, so the company went about creating a broadly welcoming atmosphere at every step in the process. ACT tried to meet San Franciscans where they were, posting notices widely, including in the Bayview and Hunters Point neighborhoods, as well as through ACT’s community partners. Pinkleton went to a bunch of local drag shows and followed some performers on social media, inviting them to try out via direct message on Instagram.
An audition notice instructed aspirants to “come as you are and do the thing you love to do.” It avoided industry jargon like “prepare 32 bars,” instead asking for less than two minutes of song. The call wasn’t held at the Geary Theater, where the show will run April 23 through May 17, or at ACT’s studios, lest one of those spaces should intimidate. It didn’t require a professional resume or headshot, which turned out to be a boon for actor Libby Oberlin. She has those documents, but she’d been evacuated from her Sonoma home for the past five days. She brought in a Xeroxed headshot.
“I just came to have fun. That’s why I brought doughnuts,” says Kathy Hrastar of Oakland as she offers treats from two pink boxes to the other folks lining up outside YBCA.
Just before 10 a.m., ACT associate producer Ken Savage, in magenta feather boa, bursts through the door with a giddy, “I think we’re ready!,” which prompts cheers.
在澳大利亚的第一个小时更多欢呼复发itions, which begins with a group warm-up. “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right,” Westfall says. As the group starts to bop and sway and groove, “The Monster Mash” plays.
When the first individual audition begins, the cohort sends Emily Maupin in with applause and a great whoop, and when the last one ends, it greets Jimi Wheeler with the same as he exits, as if he just scored a winning goal.
Back outside in the lobby, Jeremy Marquis, a graduate student in acting at Academy of Art wearing dreadlocks, horns and a flowing black gown, says he came as a member of the Dark Fey from the film “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.” He had prepared to sing “Fever” and “Disco Inferno,” and striding back outside afterward, he felt good about his work.
“I was hittin’ them high notes,” he says, “reachin’ up and grabbin’ ’em.” He appreciated the open call’s informal vibe. At other auditions, you’re “trying to be on, trying to be perfect,” he says. “But we don’t put that pressure on ourselves every day!”
Debra Forth, whose day job is as a city tour guide, dressed as Bowsette, a popular fan art character inspired by the “Super Mario” franchise. It’s as if “Bowser took a super mushroom and became Princess Peach,” she explains. Forth wears a spiky bracelet, complete with extra spikes in her purse in case one breaks off, and a flail mace which she made with her dog’s favorite toy and papier mache. In case she has to go to the bathroom, luggage clips can unfasten the giant turtle shell on her back. “I almost feel like being in costume makes me less nervous,” she says. It helps “start a conversation before stepping into something.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated Kathy Hrastar’s hometown. She lives in Oakland.