Emporia residents dressed up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday night at the Granada Theater. The movie showed both at 8 p.m. and midnight. Yiqing Fu/The Bulletin
Hundreds of fans swarmed the Granada Theatre last Friday night to take part in the object-throwing, aisle-dancing cult classic known as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The show played at both 8 p.m. and midnight.
Shelby Lindsey, junior art major and volunteer at the Granada, said that the show appeals to viewers because it is a “cult film,” which means that fans are highly devoted to it.
“It’s interactive,” Lindsey said. “We had prop bags for everyone.”
The first 200 people at each showing received a prop bad, which contained rice; a newspaper; glow sticks; rubber gloves; noisemakers like whistles; a strand of toilet paper; pieces of toast; party hats and playing cards, Lindsey said.
All items were used during certain parts of the show and were most often thrown towards the stage. For example, during the opening scene of the movie, audience members mimicked the actors by throwing rice at the newlywed couple leaving the church on screen.
“We have concerts every month but this is really the only interactive event we have ever had,” Lindsey said, “I love it because it’s just strange – in general it’s just creepy.”
Some audience members came dressed in unusual outfits, which included maids in fishnet stockings. Two such viewers were Brenna Mercer and Daya Williams, Emporian sisters who said they came to enjoy the show and relive pleasant memories from their teenage years.
“The first time (I saw it), my dad took me when I was 18 and it was with the audience participation,” Mercer said. “It’s one of my most fun memories from when I was younger.”
Williams is an Emporia State secondary education graduate. She donned a maid costume.
“I love the audience participation,” Williams said.
Along with using the items in their prop bags, viewers sang along with the music and danced in the aisles to the song “The Time Warp.” Members of the audience also shouted at the screen during key moments in the performance.
“It was nice having the prop bags – I didn’t have to remember what to bring,” said Janet Burenheide, Emporia resident.
Maria Morris, Flint Hills Technical College student, said that she loved the audience participation and her favorite part was when the volunteers at the Granada threw water at the audience during a rainy scene to simulate being rained on. Audience members put newspapers over the tops of their heads to keep dry from the “rain.”
The next show on Granada’s calendar is “Beetlejuice,” set for 7 p.m. this Friday night. Admission is $5 and the doors open at 6 p.m.
Khaili Scarbrough
SEN. ALEXANDER ANNOUNCES $340,000 FOR GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
US Fed News Service, Including US State News April 24, 2008 The office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued the following news release:
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today praised the kickoff of the Centennial Challenge Parks Initiative – a program that calls for an extra $100 million per year for the parks and nonfederal money to match it dollar-for-dollar – and highlighted the $340,000 included for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“The Centennial Challenge brings half a million dollars to our most visited National Park – the Smokies – and will go a long way toward improving park facilities, aiding preservation and creating interactive learning tools,” said Alexander. “The start of the Centennial Challenge is a perfect kickoff to National Park Week and brings other needed improvements for more than 100 additional sites across the nation. As we approach the 100th anniversary of the National Park System, we need to keep looking for big ideas – like the president’s Centennial Challenge – that will aid efforts to preserve and celebrate the Great American Outdoors.” At a Senate hearing last week, Alexander urged Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to reexamine why the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is funded at lower levels than other parks, even though the Smokies host more visitors per year than any other national park. go to website great smoky mountains
Funding for the president’s Centennial Challenge was included as part of the fiscal year 2008 omnibus bill that became law in December. The Smokies projects in the first round of the Centennial Challenge that Alexander highlighted are:
* $100,000 for planning, designing, fabricating and installing new exhibits for a 2,000-square foot museum space that is part of a new 6,492-square foot visitor center complex that is being planned for the Oconaluftee area. site great smoky mountains
* $200,000 for the preservation efforts in the Elkmont District – a national historic site of 74 cottages and outbuildings purchased in the 1920s and 1930s.-* $40,000 to develop a series of educational video podcasts to enhance park visitors’ experiences and improve park safety.
Senator Alexander is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and its Interior Subcommittee, which oversees funding for the National Park Service. He is a proponent of clean air initiatives, full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and a solar energy tax credit and was chairman of President Reagan’s Commission on the American Outdoors. Beginning when he served as governor, Alexander led the charge against the North Shore “Road to Nowhere” through the Great Smoky Mountains.
