Late-night double-feature: Rocky Horror stars STU students and Broadway talent
- Brianna Lyttle
- Nov 10
- 3 min read
When Tony and Courtney LePage sat down to plan the 2025 Rogue Productions performance season, they knew they had a lot to live up to after two successful runs of Rock of Ages.
The Rocky Horror Show, made famous from the 1975 movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is a campy, self-aware, rollicking homage to B-horror and sci-fi movies.
The story follows seemingly ordinary couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss running into the castle of the mad scientist Frank-N-Furter and his many lurking phantoms, resulting in them being unwittingly pulled into their life of free sexuality.
Courtney LePage said she was happy with the run at the Playhouse, which spanned from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1.
“It was such a labour of love from start to finish, from the whole company, the whole crew and everyone,” she said. “Every single person involved truly poured their hearts out in this process and was vulnerable and available and willing to take risks and play.”
Jasmin LaPointe, who played Riff Raff, didn’t know at first how “weird” the show was, auditioning primarily to further her involvement with Rogue Productions.
“I really surprised myself with how much fun I got out of the whole experience just being silly with the other extremely talented people in the cast,” she said.
Before Rocky Horror, LaPointe had previously worked with Rogue Productions in two of their annual Broadway by the Sea summer concerts in the Kingsbrae International Residence for the Arts Amphitheatre — an experience she described as “magic.”
“It's just this place where not a lot of people, I think, know about and performing there is just so fun. Getting to know people from Broadway who are literally the sweetest people I've ever met, and working with world-class talent like Tony is such a privilege.”
LaPointe, who trained as a soprano her whole life, was called back for the role of Magenta at first. After what she felt was a successful second audition, she received an email asking her to tape for the traditionally male character Riff Raff.
“I put some dark eye makeup on, and was very much feeling like Riff Raff. And I remember I sang Time Warp … and Liam [Lavigne] looked at me after I finished singing. He was like, ‘You just booked this part.”
When receiving external backlash about the role of Riff Raff not being played by a male actor, LaPointe said it was the cast and creative team who had her back.
“I had so much support from the cast and from Courtney and Tony. So that was hard to navigate and I just really had to look deep inside myself. And I was like, what I'm doing is great, and out of any show, [Rocky Horror] is the show to gender bend.”
Performing the show and being met with appreciation for her interpretation of Riff Raff gave LaPointe clarity on her performance.
While Courtney LePage enjoyed the boisterous and interactive elements shared between Rock of Ages and Rocky Horror, she explained, Rogue Productions intends to expand its variety of shows in the future.
“We're really excited now to open up our programming and try some other things and dig into some classic musicals … really bring all kinds of stuff to the stage. Between Tony and me, our careers in New York were mostly contemporary musical theatre, so those are the ones we felt most confident in starting with,” said LePage. “But at the end of the day, there's such a huge canon of shows to choose from, so we're really excited to start diversifying our programming.”
While Rogue Productions is never one to say never, Courtney LePage confirmed there are no current plans to return to Rocky Horror in the near future.
Since Broadway by the Sea is a recurring annual event, as well as the upcoming Home for Christmas vocal ensemble concert in December, their focus is on doing musicals new to Rogue.
The company currently has dates lined up in the spring at the Playhouse.
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