‘The Rocky Horror Show’ is now a political act in anti-drag Texas
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In Texas, a man or woman in drag, or an actor wearing nothing at all, has become a potential subject of criminal prosecution. Senate Bill 12, which was signed into law in June by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, makes it a crime to present a “sexually oriented” performance to anyone under 18. The law is now on hold as a court battle rages over its constitutionality. Its penalties sent institutions scrambling for legal advice: Offending “premises” are subject to a $10,000 fine for each infraction, and their operators can be charged with a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.
Which is how the Dallas Theater Center’s revival of “The Rocky Horror Show,” a mainstream, Broadway-tested hit and longtime cult movie sensation as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” has been transformed into something more than mere pop entertainment. It has become a symbol of freedom, a focal point in a broad effort by authorities in red states to demonize drag and regulate artistic expression.
To a theater lover, it is all a bit surreal, sort of a real-life version of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” the 1978 musical comedy about the hypocrisy surrounding an effort to shutter a beloved house of ill repute. Except there is nothing funny about the implications of S.B. 12, which seeks to regulate any performance that “appeals to the prurient interest in sex.” Critics point out it was written so broadly that unintended targets such as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders could be subject to its restrictions for wearing suggestively skimpy costumes.
“Increasingly what we’ve seen in this state, both at the state and local level, is people using the criminal law to punish groups and forms of expression that they don’t like,” said Travis Fife, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, which opposes the statute. “It is another example of where the state has chosen an enemy and is trying to use the criminal law as a sword to harm them.”
Kevin Moriarty, executive director of the Dallas Theater Center, described S.B. 12 not only as a bad law but also dangerous. “We have never denied access to the art,” he said, “and the hard choice we would have to make if the law were to go fully into effect is: Do we stand up for our principles and risk significant hardship or do we cave in?”
At the moment, he does not have to decide. On Sept. 26, U.S. District Judge David Hittner ruled in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union that S.B. 12 was “an unconstitutional restriction on speech.” His 56-page decision enjoined the state from enforcing the law as it “impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment.” Two days later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed notice that the state will appeal. (Messages left with the primary sponsor of S.B. 12, Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, went unanswered.)
As the law makes its way through the courts, a chilling effect is already apparent, according to local arts leaders and owners of some entertainment venues. Richard Montez, who with his partner David Gamez produces adults-only drag shows in San Antonio and is a plaintiff in the ACLU suit, said their business had to cancel events in the wake of S.B. 12 for fear of incurring criminal sanctions when they perform outdoors, potentially in public view. “From the day it was proposed, it has been touted by many of our prominent lawmakers as a ban on drag,” Chloe Kempf, an ACLU attorney in Texas, said of S.B. 12.
In Dallas, leaders of Theatre Three, founded in 1961, originally decided to prohibit anyone under 18 from attending their first show of the season, “Lizzie: The Musical,” because of worries about how vaguely S.B. 12 defined sexual content. S.B. 12 describes “sexually oriented performance” as “a performer who is nude” or “a male performer exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.” (Codifying lip-syncing as potentially criminal adds to the surreality.)
Christie Vela, associate artistic director at Theatre Three, said the company did not want to face the expense of being dragged into court, even though the world premiere musical, about alleged ax murderer Lizzie Borden, had no drag performer or content of a graphic sexual nature. It was because, Vela said, “there are allusions in the story to a romantic relationship between two women.” Artistic director Jeffrey Schmidt added, “S.B. 12 is so vague. I just did not want to be the one to test the waters.” After the recent ruling, the theater, whose season includes “Deathtrap,” “The Seagull” and “Pirates of Penzance,” opted to relax the ban on juvenile attendees.
Still, there is a sense the political well has been poisoned, in a state where the ideological divisions are intense and often regional. Dallas, like Austin and Houston, has a history of tolerance that is reflected in its cultural offerings: One of the leading gay theaters in the country, Uptown Players, is a fixture of the Dallas theater scene. Since its founding by artistic director Jeff Rane in 2001, the company has produced dozens of plays and musicals for gay, straight and gender-fluid audiences.
“Because we have had success and we have paved the way, if you will, and been pioneers on how to do it, now many of the theaters in the area are doing LGBTQ material in their seasons,” Rane said. But even in Dallas, tensions can boil over. Schmidt recounted his experience when Theatre Three produced a play about abortion and a woman’s right to choose. “Some people lost their minds,” he said. “A guy ripped up his program and threw it in my face. It was terrible in the moment.”
The fever to find ways to punish people for being different in a public space is expressed in Texas in a variety of initiatives. In addition to S.B. 12, Hughes this year introduced S.B. 1601, which sought to withhold state funding to libraries sponsoring events at which drag performers read to children. In August, the ACLU filed federal civil rights complaints against a charter school, the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the Keller Independent School District, alleging that a transgender child was blocked from auditioning for the Singing Girls of Texas choir.
Kempf, the ACLU attorney, sees a worrying continuum for the arts, concerning both drag and LGBTQ issues. “There is more pushback against drag in terms of protest and threats of violence,” she said. The legislative assault is occurring, Kempf added, “at a time when every aspect of the life of LGBTQ people is under assault.”
To Liz Mikel, none of this makes sense. A veteran actress who just finished the national tour of “1776,” cast entirely with female, trans and nonbinary actors, she plays the nosy Dr. Scott in “The Rocky Horror Show” in the 440-seat Kalita Humphreys Theater.
“Artists are being penalized for being artists, for bringing art to the community,” Mikel said. “I want to cry now.” Sitting in the theater lobby, her castmates Lee Walter and Zachary Willis, both of whom portray gender-fluid characters, concurred. Walter, a Dallas star who plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter, lamented the loss of some entertainment jobs when promoters canceled drag brunches because of worries about prosecution.
The Dallas Theater Center had previously staged “The Rocky Horror Show” in 2014, when no Texas lawmaker was in a public tizzy over drag. At that time, the company hosted Dallas middle and high school students, as part of the its decades-old, award-winning Project Discovery education program. This year, company officials said, the Dallas school district declined to send students.
What has really changed, aside from the fact that the state has weighed in? Jennifer Altabef, a lawyer and chair of the Dallas Theater Center board, said she has friends “on all ends” of the political spectrum and that she respects differing points of view. “I do understand that everyone wants to protect their children from things they think are harmful, and what people think is harmful is different, and it will always be that way.” She added, “But we have constitutional protections that cannot be abridged. And you know, that is where it has to stop. I mean, what a child sees should be in the purview of the parents and the parenting relationship, and not in the state relationship.”
On a recent weekday night, the kind of raucous crowd that has been attending “Rocky Horror” for years, people in their 20s and their 60s, some in fright wigs or cosplaying the musical’s zany characters, filed into the Kalita Humphreys Theater, designed by eminent architect Frank Lloyd Wright. While they could attend, I did not notice anyone under 18 at the show, which is directed by Blake Sackler and choreographed by Kelsey Milbourn and runs until Oct. 29.
The young woman in her 20s seated next to me laughed and caterwauled as other audience members participated in the traditional “Rocky Horror” routine, shouting catchphrases and sarcastic commentary back at the actors. It was this young woman’s first experience of the musical, she said. At intermission, I asked if she was aware of the controversy swirling in the theater community and whether it was in any way spoiling her fun. “Yeah, the drag ban,” she said. “And no, not tonight!”