Rocky Horror costumes come together

Story by: Clarke Stackhouse

The UM Theatre Department's production of "The Rocky Horror Show" has finished its run and the set has been disbanded, and costumes packed away into storage. Many areas of the production require great work and effort all to look effortless on stage, especially costumes and makeup.

"The Rocky Horror Show" and the famous movie based off of it, "The Rocky Horror Picture show, have become huge cult classics and many people know and revere the costumes and dress as the shows characters for Halloween and live showings of the movie and the stage musical. 

Students work on creating tattoos for The Rocky Horror Show

With such an iconic shows as Rocky Horror, the audience expects certain elements to remain the same, as the creative team craves a more unique look.

Emily Gill, associate professor and Rocky Horror costume designer, says she enjoys designing shows at Montevallo because she has more creative license to differ from original source material.

"We have something special," Gill said. "We try to do something a little bit different when telling the story."

She said her design inspiration came from the early B-horror movies of the mid 1900's and the bright pulp-fiction colored magazines and comics of the time.

The show will be bright and colorful and reminiscent of the Psychobilly fashion movement, with elements of grunge and punk, with tattoos and technicolor hair.

The production's poster

"It's something that's very flattering to the actors," Gill said. "But it also gives the best color punch on stage."

Rocky Horror is known to be a show with little clothing and Gill said its been fun making more undergarments and focusing on movements they have to do.

"The thing about Rocky Horror, is there's not a lot to wear," she said. "So they're mostly panties. I'll be making a lot of underpants."

One of the most iconic pieces of lingerie in the show is the corset of Dr. Frank-n-furter. Jae Hallenbeck cretaed the corset as a part of his undergraduate research.

He said the corset is unique and has been a lot of fun to make, and very educational creating a modern corset.

"The corset design and the fabric together give him that like alien look, and its nothing like I’ve ever seen before," Hallenbeck said. "So I’m really excited to see it on stage."

The show opened and sold out many of its performances, with a lot of acclaim and criticism of the unique costumes. For more information on UM's Theatre department and upcoming shows click here.