“It’s Theater That Insists on Being Theater”: Sam Pinkleton on Reviving The Rocky Horror Show

To say Sam Pinkleton has been busy since winning a Tony for directing Oh, Mary! would be an understatement. There’s been comedian Josh Sharp’s one-man show/2,000-slide PowerPoint presentation ta-da!, Morgan Bassichis’ tribute to Frank Maya, Can I Be Frank? and the West End transfer of Oh, Mary!. Now, the in-demand showman is in rehearsals for the highly-anticipated revival of The Rocky Horror Show at Studio 54. Pinkleton talked to Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek about his insatiable creativity and taking on the “alien sex romp.”

Though his plate is pretty full these days, Pinkleton still visits Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre from time to time. “It's a nerdy thing to say, but I do, in fact, love the show and I love being in the building. It's a really happy building to be in. So I try to be there every couple of weeks. I have checked in with some director friends of long-running shows to be like, how much is too much? Am I a creep?” says Pinkleton. “I assume I come in and I'm like, ‘Hey everybody, it's the friendly gay guy’ and everyone's like, ‘Get that guy out of here. He's just gonna be mad that we're taking pauses.’ But I try to keep it light.”

Cole Escola penned Oh, Mary! and was the first performer to don Mary Todd Lincoln’s bratty curls, winning a Tony for their all-out comic performance. Since their departure, a bevy of stars have taken on the First Lady, with Hedwig and the Angry Inch auteur John Cameron Mitchell coming on board earlier this month. “John Cameron Mitchell is incredible and such a weirdo and such an original,” says Pinkleton. “It's a good part and I keep learning new things about it which is just joyous. All of these actors are getting to do something they've never really gotten to do before, but know they have inside of them “

As fate would have it, Pinkleton almost directed a 2020 production of Rocky Horror in San Francisco that ended up getting “pandemic annihilated.” Waxing on the cult classic, Pinkleton says, “It's made out of everything that I love, which is like weirdos and trash and a kind of strange earnestness. I know that when many people think about Rocky Horror, they think about going to the movies and dressing up and getting a V on your forehead and throwing shit at the screen. All of that's true and fun. But it also is for so many people [about] survival. Studio 54 heightens this, that something can be ridiculous and trashy and messy and queer and also like dead serious and so big-hearted. Rocky Horror is known as a film obviously, but it was created as a stage show and it is an undeniably live experience. I think it's like theater that insists on being theater.”

“Maybe I'm in the honeymoon phase right now. I'm on day seven of rehearsal. I'm very much in love with everyone. We're having a wonderful time. I keep waiting for a piano to fall out of the sky,” quips Pinkleton. “For so many people, they saw [Rocky Horror] when they were young and they felt like they shouldn't be seeing it. So it's this kind of naughtiness. There's a titillation to it that I just love. We’re feeling that in the room already.”

This iteration of Rocky Horror features an eclectic assortment of stars, including Rachel Dratch, Andrew Durand, Amber Gray, Harvey Guillén, Stephanie Hsu, Juliette Lewis, Josh Rivera and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, with Luke Evans leading the cast as the maniacal Frank-N-Furter. “The very first thing I said about the show when I was meeting with the casting directors was that I wanted it to be a group of people that you look at and you're like, ‘How did those people end up together?' Because I think that's what Rocky Horror is and what Rocky Horror does."

Pinkleton is particularly jazzed about Lewis, who will be playing the extraterrestrial temptress Magenta. He first met the Oscar nominee backstage at Oh, Mary!. “Usually when there's fancy people at Oh, Mary! I'm like hiding behind a trash can because I don't know what to say. But I love Juliette Lewis and she was so awesome backstage in a way that made me be like, 'I feel an attraction to this person,'" relays Pinkleton. “We kind of stayed in touch. When I started thinking about Magenta, I was like, who is an awesome, weird actor who's like properly rock and roll? Juliette Lewis. I reached out and I found out that Juliette Lewis is a lifelong Rocky Horror fanatic and has this incredibly deep and high stakes connection to it, as so many do.”

As for Evans—the Welsh musical theater performer-turned Hollywood action star—Pinkleton says, “He's got real power, but he's also such a tender weirdo, like a real weirdo, which I think is a side that the world hasn't totally seen from him.” For those hoping for diva-meltdowns or dustups, Pinkleton has some disappointing news: “We're having a really nice time. I wish I had drama to share.”

In his Tony Award acceptance speech, Pinkleton thanked the late Elizabeth Swados, a trailblazing creative force who is best known for writing and directing the musical Runaways. Pinkleton first encountered Swados as a musical theater student at NYU and says her class had a profound impact on his artistic development. “Oddly enough in that class was the great Ani Taj, who's choreographing Rocky Horror. The great director and choreographer nicHi Douglas, Shaina Taub was in that class. All of these people who have gone on to be creators, and many of us met Liz thinking of ourselves as performers,” says Pinkleton.

“We made terrible, humiliating things with her, but we just kept making stuff. She did it with this combination of real toughness, like sometimes scary toughness and a sense of humor. To be able to hold discipline and goofiness at the same time is the thing that has kept me in theater. There's a straight line to her there. It makes me so emotional to talk about,” he continues. “She forces a fearlessness, even when I don’t want to. When I’m like, ‘I don't wanna get out of bed, I don't wanna go to rehearsal. I shouldn't be directing The Rocky Horror Show, I'm an impostor,' I feel Liz being like, 'None of this matters, go do it.' And that's huge.”

This sustained influence of Swados and his love for the craft have kept him motivated as his career reaches new heights. “Rocky Horror is my 10th Broadway show, which feels so crazy to me. The idea that I would get to work on Broadway once was like, I can die now," he stresses. "I really like doing this. I like being a theater worker. I like collaborating. I like doing things that I've never done before, and I have learned in a really incredible way. I 'blame' Cole Escola for this—that if I really focus and am honest, I can make things that I fiercely believe in—and that is the best feeling in the world.”

Watch the full interview below:

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