2 posts tagged “news article”
This is the article that my hometown's "college paper" did on the recent Rocky Horror showing (complete with typos):
"Horror" on screen and in the audience
Jacqueline Hays
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Many of the spectators were dressed to perform in lingerie and costume make-up at Saturday's viewing. The majority of the audience brought party favors; including holiday noisemakers, rice, toast and toilet paper to throw when prompted by certain scenes in the movie.
The "Picture Show" is a cult classic musical about two virginal lovers, Brad and Janet, stranded at a cross dressing, mad scientist's castle. Brad and Janet interrupt Dr. Frank-N-Furter's party where he unveils Rocky, a muscle man he has created.
The night of festivities at the theater began with a managerial-looking man addressing the audience after they clapped and chanted, "Speech, speech!"
He welcomed newcomers or "virgins" as the audience referred to them and explained that the audience was going to participate with the movie.
"Toast might fly over your head," he said, as well as rice and toilet paper. Water and throwing anything directly at the movie screen was prohibited.
Cape's venue is the only one in the company that shows the "Picture Show," he said, because everyone has followed the rules so far.
He warned against the quality of the film because of its age and everyone cheered as the opening credits began and big red lips began singing the plot line.
Within minutes, the audience knew they were at a true "grindhouse" movie when the film snapped and the movie stopped. The lights went up and the audience unleashed a fury of whimpers. Within seconds the screen came alive again and Brad and Janet were engaged and headed for Dr. Scott's place. When they detoured to the castle in the rain, everyone in the audience held newspapers over their heads.
Almost the whole audience rushed to gather at the front of the movie screen to dance and sing along to the "Time Warp."
When Tim Curry's character "Frank-N-Furter" appeared on stage to belt out "I'm a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania," Carly Trautwein from Cape Girardeau sprang from the audience, dressed in a corset complete with garters and a black wig to act out Frank-N-Furter's number.
She originally heard about the "Picture Show" from friends and has been to several screenings in full costume. "It's rather addictive," she said, "If you're the type, you can't stop."
Trautwein came to the show with Lauren Bishop, who dressed as Columbia and her sister Janna Trautwein, dressed as Janet.
"Its fun to dress up and be outside the norm," Bishop said.
When Rocky was revealed on screen, Sam Dereign, a journalism major, rose on cue with his hands high mimicking the onscreen antics and was soon being chased by Trautwein, as Frank-N-Furter, even though they didn't know each other.
Dereign's friend Travis Randolf was dressed as Eddie and danced around with Lauren Bishop as Columbia.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an experience everyone should have at least once. It will return to Wehrenberg in July.
This blurb appeared on the front page Ball State's Daily News this morning:
"Ball State University police arrested two students at Bracken Library on Sunday, according to Delaware County Jail officials.
Sophomore K----- D----- and freshman A--- D------ were booked into jail at about 9 p.m. on preliminary charges of disorderly conduct, and they were being held on $1,000 bails late Sunday, according to jail officials.
Ball state police and Bracken Library staff declined to comment on the situation Sunday.
According to the Indiana Code, if both men are convicted of the Class B misdemeanors, they can be sentenced up to 180 days in prison and receive a masimum fine of $1,000."
The article did print the names of the students, but I am not going to repeat them here, since the Internet is far more universal than the campus newspaper. The author's name was not listed.
At first glance, it seems like a fairly straightforward situation, if a little odd (some of you may be thinking, "An arrest in a library? Hmm...okay").
Not so. Jason happens to be in acting class with both of the guys who were arrested, and when I noticed this blurb, he told me the story that the newspaper didn't mention. Apparently, here's what really happened:
A couple of weeks ago, the people in Jonathan Becker's acting class were paired up for an acting exercise that had to be prepared out of class, to be performed later. He gave them a photo, and the exercise was, essentially, to act out the scene that they thought that photo portrayed. (Just for comparison, Jason's situation involved a couple sitting at a table in the middle of a pasture.) Apparently, these guys' photo involved one guy holding a gun to another guy's head.
You can see this one coming, can't you?
So, these guys were practicing in a side room at the library - fairly out-of-the-way, but not completely private - with a toy gun. The kind with the orange plastic cap on the end of the barrel.
Maybe they got too loud, maybe somebody thought they saw something they didn't, I don't know, but the next thing they knew, someone was yelling at the guy holding the gun to drop the weapon and lie down flat, because there were five armed men surrounding the room.
Both guys got arrested, as the article above stated. One of them had to call his mom to come and bail him out; the other one got a bond officer. They both were able to go to acting class the next day (today), which is when the story came out.
My question is this: when the cops burst into the room and saw that the "weapon" had an orange plastic cap on it, wouldn't that have been a little bit of a red flag?
Did these guys not get a chance to explain what was going on? The kind of room they were in requires a reservation at the front desk, so I'm sure the library staff - or their acting teacher, or both - would be able to corroborate their story. Instead, they had to go to jail and pay a thousand dollars to get out - when they hadn't done anything at all.
This whole thing just boggles my mind.