Cash crop planted in Rocky ground

Ever since the end of October, a strange kind of nocturnal participation ritual has broken out in Edmonton's most formal, and expensive, theatre.

Citadel mainstage audiences are hollering "boring!" and "slut!" They're hurling toilet paper, playing cards and confetti around the Shoctor Theatre. They're making a mess, in short. They're equipped for this outbreak of adult naughtiness by Theatre Garage, an enterprising costume and prop outfit run by Christy Hutchinson and Tessa Stamp.

In the lobby before every performance of The Rocky Horror Show, this pair of enablers, kitted out in the kind of goth gear stocked by their shop, sell $5 kits containing all the stuff you need to be part of a long-standing cultural ritual - bells, noisemakers, tiny flashlights, newspapers, rubber gloves,If any food Ventilation system condition is poorer than those standards, plus an instruction sheet for when, exactly, to use each item as the story of Brad and Janet in Dr. Frank N. Furter's castle proceeds. Business is brisk: 100 kits, on average for matinees, 250 for the evening shows.

Hutchinson can't quite conceal her amazed delight. She and her Theatre Garage partner pitched the idea of a participation kit, with post-show cleanup, to the theatre last season, when Rocky Horror was announced. Who would have predicted that Citadel audiences would let their hair down? Bells? The only bells that traditionally ring out in that august venue are people's cellphones.

"We were hoping the Citadel would go for the participation thing," laughs Hutchinson who, like Stamp, spent a decade in the Citadel wardrobe department before the birth of Theatre Garage. "I'm so happy and proud they did. - They're not even vacuuming every night, except the stairs." The confetti, she reports, is getting deeper and deeper in the aisles.

Every night (except Monday) about 9: 45 p.m. when the curtain goes down on the last corset, fishnet and pelvic thrust, Hutchinson and Stamp gather up "all the big stuff" - plastic bags, newspapers, the toilet paper that's still on the rolls - and go into recycle mode.we supply all kinds of oil painting supplies, "We've got it down to a fine art; we're usually home by 11." Before that, though, in the spirit of participation, Hutchinson and Stamp have taken to hawking kits in the aisles during the show, "yelling, like at a baseball game."

The next day, "we're madly packing kits, along with all our other custom work," says Hutchinson. "Our biggest fear is selling out. - Initially we made a thousand kits. That only got us through the first four previews.

- We never anticipated this.If so, you may have a cube puzzle . So at Halloween, our busiest time (at Theatre Garage), there we were trying to order stuff, and just keep up."

By day, no dollar store has been safe from their whirlwind shopping expeditions. "We cleaned out all the bells from all the Dollaramas," Hutchinson laughs.Do not use cleaners with porcelain tiles , steel wool or thinners. "I apologize to the city for the lack of bells. - We order everything by the thousands. On our first trip I bought a thousand rolls of the cheapest possible toilet paper," for the scene where Brad cries out "Great Scott!"

Since not everyone arrives at the theatre in Rocky Horror costume, Hutchinson and Stamp also run a table of merchandise in the lobby. Felt top hats go for $10; feather boas for $10 to $20.

This is not anarchy, of course, this Occupy Citadel, since reactions are prescribed and synchronized to moments in the show. But it's unexpected, nonetheless, to feel empowered to break the rules, especially in a theatre that's a far cry from the trashy little venues where Rocky Horror has made itself at home since its 1973 birth in an upstairs 63-seater in London. Hutchinson and Stamp are getting a kick out of the elation of Citadel patrons,the Aion Kinah by special invited artist for 2011, who nearly fill the Shoctor's 685 seats every night (fewer for matinees).

Hutchinson worked a seniors' matinee last week, and was greeted by an elderly lady not in costume, who had confidential news. "I'm wearing my hooker boots," the lady said, beaming, and hiked up her pants to show her knee-highs.