Juniors Sean Keeley and Natalie Ogden stood onstage in undergarments after fellow cast members removed their outerwear. The undressing was part of the choreography for “Time Warp,” one of the songs in The Rocky Horror Show, this year’s spring musical.
Rocky Horror, Richard O’Brien’s 1973 sci-fi musical, features heterosexual and queer sex scenes, which were uncommon in popular plays of the ’70s. The theater department’s production of the show ran from April 23 to April 26.
On April 25, senior and stage manager Lina Colla emailed parents of kids in the show and told them that the department had partnered with Kristina Friedgen, a theater director with experience as an intimacy coordinator. According to the email, Friedgen helped cast members with “physical proximity, partner interactions, or any staged touch.”
Acting teacher Maria Watson told the Bit that the theater department collectively decided to hire an intimacy coordinator for the show. Technical director Christian Sullivan, a friend of Friedgen’s, connected Friedgen and Performing Arts Department Chair Christian Stallworth.
Friedgen told the Bit that she began working with the cast of Rocky Horror two weeks before the show’s opening. She gave a presentation on intimacy coordination to the cast, led a workshop on communication and helped choreograph scenes in which cast members came in close contact with each other. She said she choreographed “who was going to touch what” and “who was going to be responsible for what” for the scene in which servants removed Keeley’s and Ogden’s outer clothes. The two juniors played a newly engaged couple.
“Once you’ve been rehearsing for a long time,” Keeley said, “nothing’s really uncomfortable anymore.”
Watson said the theater department hired an intimacy coordinator for the 2021 production of Spring Awakening and for at least two other productions within the last decade. Watson said she always teaches cast members how to properly act in intimate scenes, regardless of the presence of an intimacy coordinator.
“It’s a lot about facilitating communication,” Friedgen said about intimacy coordination, “and making sure that actors know that they are in control of their bodies and have the right to exercise consent.”
According to Sullivan, dance and acting teacher Maria Watson and theater director János Szász chose to modify a scene at the top of the second act to make it less sexual. Due to licensing issues, they could not edit the script. They did, however, alter stage directions.
Szász declined an interview for this story.
At the top of the second act, a mad scientist tricks Janet into having sex with him by disguising himself as Brad; he then does the same to Brad by disguising himself as Janet. In many productions of the show, the mad scientist visibly has sex with Janet and then Brad. Szász and Watson instead staged a scene in which Brad, Janet and the scientist read their lines of scripts and ensemble actors mimicked sexual motions in silhouette.
“Originally, there were condom props,” sophomore Stella Kaplan, who was on the props crew, said, referring to the sex scene at the top of the second act. “Those were cut out because [Szász and Watson] changed that scene a lot to make it more appropriate,” Kaplan said.
“My only concern with the show,” science teacher Polly Martin, who watched the show, said, referring to the sex scene at the top of the second act, “is that there is a non-consensual aspect there.”
Colla copied Assistant Head for Equity and Inclusion Marlo Thomas and High School Principal Chris Levy in her April 25 email. Colla said she copied the two administrators to show that school leadership supported the theater department’s decision to bring on Friedgen. According to Colla, Thomas and Levy were not directly involved in recruiting Friedgen.
According to Colla, Thomas suggested that the theater department recommend the show for students older than 14, advice the department accepted. Thomas asked that the figure in the show’s poster have longer shorts. Performing arts assistant Abigail Lund said the department then lengthened the figure’s shorts.
Colla’s early September announcement of Rocky Horror as the spring musical came as a surprise to senior Ethan Farber because of the musical’s sexual content. “[Rocky Horror] is not a show that’s traditionally put on by high schools,” Farber, who played the mad scientist in the show, said.
According to Colla, Szász wanted to put on Rocky Horror for the spring musical because he loved the musical’s 1975 film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“A lot of our previous productions,” Keeley said, “were from a mid 20th-century time period and projected an idealized ’50s American lifestyle.” Last year, the theater department put on Bye-Bye Birdie, which is set in 1958, for the spring musical. Rocky Horror is set in the ’70s. “Rocky Horror is kind of taking that ’50s American lifestyle and twisting it and making fun of it.”
CORRECTION (May 4 at 11:01 a.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Thomas gave a “thumbs up” to the theater department for the show’s poster. Instead, she asked for the figure in the poster to have longer shorts.
CLARIFICATION: (May 4 at 3:55 p.m.): This article has been clarified to reflect that Sullivan connected Friedgen and Stallworth.
This article was updated on May 4.