Science Fiction Night

Standing Room Only is the name of the new organization that I have created to help the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College promote and educate students in theatre at Rhodes. The first show of this season is the Rocky Horror Show, which most likely will not be difficult to promote. You cannot, however, take this for granted. Most students my age have not attended the midnight showings of the film nor know every single call line. They didn't live through the early science fiction and horror movies that Rocky Horror pokes fun of. This was the starting place for our team with this show.

To educate and promote, therefore, we're hosting a movie night in the ampitheatre of the college on Thursday, October 18 at 7:30. The director of our production, Chris Davis, will speak about our production and its relation to these early horror and science fiction films, and then we're going to show "Curse of the Demon," one of the songs referenced in the opening number of Rocky Horror, "Science Fiction/Double Feature" (Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes and passing them used lots of skill).

We're having free popcorn and inviting all of campus to attend. This event functions to educate our audience on the context in which the original production was created and to help them better understand what the Rhodes production is doing when referencing the terrible horror films of our generation.

Working with Rhodes Activities Board, we will be promoting the evening through e-mail, posters, and facebook fliers. We have also scheduled meetings with the presidents of the various Greek organizations on campus to gain their support. As I was told at a recent CODA meeting, if you can make members of your target audience feel like they have something at stake in the project, you are more likely to create something that will be more widely supported. By requesting the support of these organizations, we have the opportunity to bring students into the theatre who previously have been uninvolved.