Rocky Horror Picture Show Lives at the Kennedy Center

The curtain rises on the Kennedy Center's stage and there's Frank-N-Furter, all corset and attitude, and I remember why this show has survived fifty years of cultural shifts, backlash, and reinvention. The Rocky Horror Picture Show—that delirious, unapologetic celebration of sexual transgression and theatrical abandon—is alive and thrashing around the Kennedy Center, and it's a masterclass in why camp matters, especially now. I'm not here to tell you that Rocky Horror is suddenly relevant or timely. It's always been relevant. But sitting in the Kennedy Center—that temple of respectability, that institution where presidents and dignitaries and the culturally vetted come to be seen—watching Brad and Janet stumble into a castle full of drag queens, aliens, and a mad scientist who's frankly just trying to have a good time, felt like a small revolution. The juxtaposition itself is the point. The production is unapologetic about what it is. There's no winking irony here, no "we know this is weird" framing. Frank-N-Furter struts across that stage with the kind of confidence that used to get people arrested, and the Kennedy Center audience—a mix of longtime fans who've seen this show in midnight screenings at independent theaters, curious newcomers, and people who came because their friends dragged them—roared. Not laughed. Roared. What struck me most was how the staging leans into the sensuality of it all. The choreography is genuinely sexual without being gratuitous. There's a difference, and this production understands it. When Frank descends the staircase in that iconic black corset, or when the ensemble moves through "Science Fiction/Double Feature," there's a physicality that makes you remember: this show is about desire. It's about wanting things that society tells you are wrong, and deciding to want them anyway. That's not a small thing. The band is tight, the vocals are strong, and the set design—all Art Deco curves and shadow play—creates this sense that we're in some timeless, impossible place where the normal rules don't apply. Which is exactly where we need to be right now. While outlets like The Advocate and Queerty have been covering the usual national culture war stuff, there's something more urgent happening in real time here at the Kennedy Center: a theater full of DC residents watching a show that celebrates gender-bending, sexual liberation, and the absolute rejection of conformity. That's not abstract. That's not a think piece. That's people, in person, choosing to spend their evening celebrating the things they've been told to be ashamed of. There's a moment in the second act where the ensemble is in full Rocky Horror drag—the makeup, the fishnet, the heels, the absolute commitment to the bit—and I watched a woman in the row in front of me lean over to her partner and just shake her head in what I can only describe as pure joy. Not ironic appreciation. Not camp enjoyment from a distance. Real, uncomplicated happiness at watching people on stage be exactly who they wanted to be. I'd be lying if I said the show is flawless. Some of the dialogue lands better than others, and there are moments where the pacing drags just slightly. But honestly? That's part of the charm. Rocky Horror was never meant to be slick or polished. It's supposed to be a little rough around the edges, a little too much, a little bit dangerous. This production respects that DNA. The Kennedy Center is an interesting choice for this show, and I mean that as genuine observation, not criticism. This is an institution that's spent decades cultivating respectability, and now they're hosting a show where a character literally builds a lover out of spare parts and throws a party where everyone ends up in corsets. There's something beautifully defiant about that. It says something about where we are as a city—or at least where we're trying to be. If you've seen Rocky Horror a hundred times in basements and college dorms and midnight screenings, you'll find something new here. The scale is different. The resources are different. But the spirit—that absolute refusal to apologize for wanting things, for being things, for celebrating bodies and sexuality and gender in all its messy reality—that's exactly the same. If you've never seen it, you're about to understand why this show has outlasted every attempt to kill it. It's not because it's campy or fun or nostalgic, though it's all of those things. It's because it's true. It's about the part of yourself that doesn't fit, and what happens when you stop pretending it does. Get a ticket. Wear something ridiculous. Go with friends. Go alone. Go because you need to remember that there are still places—even in the Kennedy Center, even in 2024—where the weird, the sexual, the gender-nonconforming, the absolutely unashamed version of yourself is not just tolerated but celebrated. That matters. That's worth your time.