This is Fresh Air.
I'm David Biancooli.
Come up to the lab and see what's on the slab.
I see you shiver with anticipation.
Both the stage and screen versions of the Rocky Horror show,
starring Tim Curry as an extraterrestrial visitor who believed in sexual freedom and fluid sexual identities,
had beginnings that might best be described as Rocky.
Richard O'Brien's stage musical, the Rocky Horror show, began in London in 1973,
ran for a while in a Los Angeles nightclub, then moved to Broadway in 1975.
It opened there in March starring Tim Curry, Richard O'Brien and Meatloaf, and closed a month later.
The movie version had been filmed before the brief Broadway run and was released later that year.
But it too vanished quickly vanish.
That is, until a year later,
when a New York movie theater began hosting midnight screenings of the Rocky Horror Picture show,
launching a phenomenon that's still going strong.
And next spring,
the Rocky Horror show is returning to Broadway courtesy of a new production by the Roundabout Theater Company.
The Rocky Horror Picture show movie starred two then relatively unknown actors,
Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon.
They played young sweethearts Brad Majors and Janet Weiss.