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Richard Andreoli
1987
1992
Brad
Ken Cinema
email: andreoli1@aol.com

1990

2002

Location: West Hollywood, CA

Marital Status: I have a brilliant boyfriend named Steve. We’re not allowed to marry, in case you didn’t know, which is just another example of The Man repressin’ the people Big Boy style.
Children: None because we can’t get pregnant, which in this case has nothing to do with The Man, but we do suspect a lesbian conspiracy somewhere behind the scenes.

Have you or would you let your kids see Rocky: Of course! Look what it did for me!

What I'm doing these days: I’m a freelance writer for Instinct Magazine, Unzipped Monthly and various other publications. Other than that I’m unemployed, and it’s not nearly as glamorous as they make it look in RENT. I’ve worked in film and television in various capacities, including assisting producers and directors. This sounds quite glamorous but please bear in mind that an assistant is a glorified chauffeur who can multi-task and has the Starbucks menu memorized. I also ran development for a production company for five years, which means I read people’s scripts and told them they sucked. Most recently, if you listen very closely, you’ll hear me whispering to the character "Jesse" in the film Queen of the Damned; Anne Rice is lovely in case you were wondering. My current focus is obtaining an agent to whore out my scripts, novels and writing services.

People from Rocky I've kept in touch with: I loves me my Yohann (John) Gentile who got me into Rocky and we speak regularly. He and his wife said, "Fuck you!" to The Man and are sailing around the world in their boat. Amy Alexander, Todd Mullin, Glen Clabaugh, and that whole Rocky/SCA posse are still very much in my life. I usually see Anthony and Susanna Pearce during Comic-Con every summer where we have a wonderful time catching up. I also run into random people from time to time, usually at Comic-Con as well. In these cases I generally stare at the person, blank faced and try to figure out who the hell they are.

How I first came to Rocky: Yohann Gentile told me Rocky was exactly what I needed to loosen up, and he was right. Oddly enough, a certain Michael Reed who I worked with at Jack in the Box-- he was the guy who screwed this hottie named Michelle Wallace in the walk-in refrigerator-- was also in the cast, so I knew some people there. Then Yohann started performing, and I’m too cheap to pay admission all the time, so I started as well. This put Todd and Amy (who were dating back then) in my life pretty regularly, and I was soon hanging out with their SCA household. I pretty much stayed in until the summer before I left San Diego for UCLA.

Food I ordered after the show: Nothing, because even then I understood what ordering food after 2am when you’re NOT cracked out can do to your love handles.

Before the reunion, I last performed: in 1992

Before the reunion, I last saw Rocky: The only time I’ve seen Rocky anywhere outside of San Diego was in Toronto in 2000, and yes, they all spoke with funny accents. The audience had maybe 20 people in it, the announcer and I were the only people participating (the lines are like herpes, they just pop up whether you want them to or not). Thank God I wasn’t sober because needless to say, it was pretty lame. Cast members came up to me after the show and asked if I wanted to join since I knew so much. This evening was the only time I’d ever paid to see Rocky
Horror since entering the cast back in 1987.

Did I buy the Rocky DVD? no

My favorite Rocky memories: IN PUBLIC: When the stage play was at the Lyceum in Horton Plaza, Bill Balsley got groups of us together in costume to walk around the mall and promote the show. It gave us permission to be our usually freakish selves in the daylight. Watching Margo in a Frank costume trying to run in platforms the wrong way up an escalator was a hoot! (She tore the shit out of her knee in the process).
AT THE KEN: Whenever Kerri Smith (Bush) and I performed Brad and Janet, after the show when the reprise of Science Fiction Double Feature would play, we’d come out and waltz on stage until the end of the song. We always ended with a kiss in each other’s arms. That’s the sweetest memory of that place I think I’ll ever have.


I know we often talk about how fun Rocky Horror was, and reminisce about the crazy times we had, but I think we sometimes neglect to realize how important Rocky Horror really was in our maturity. Perhaps these are my feelings alone, but let me share with you a couple thoughts.

When you were in the cast you were special, you were the shit. And how great was it when you threw out a new line that made everyone laugh? Or better still, when someone else adopted your line and it became part of the San Diego Rocky’s oral tradition, how much did you feel like you’d become a small part of history? I remember when Terry Ferris introduced her line just before Janet has sex with Rocky ("Hey Janet! Smile if you want that long, hard, succulent, pulsating piece of man’s meat shoved down your throat ‘til you gag!"), and it suddenly became the moment we all anticipated and saved for her and her alone. When I joined the cast, I remember Anthony Pearce complimenting me on some joke I’d made or on my performance, and I was so thrilled! It was like I’d been accepted, welcomed in by the veterans.

All of this was huge because in our every day world we were (and sometimes still are) the freaks. Yes, I was dealing with issues of sexuality, but I think we were all struggling with some coming-of-age dilemma that was vitally important to each of us. Some were discovering their own philosophies, considering their dreams and how to make them reality, exploring Wicca and how that impacted their spirituality, worrying about their home lives, or desperately searching for love and acceptance. Whatever the personal journey, I think many of us found a safe haven within these theater walls, and on that stage, or in that audience. In these places we were allowed to explore, to process, to make mistakes, to discover joys, and to do it all with incredible support surrounding us. Such a valuable gift that all of us were granted, a gift that people who never "got" Rocky, never got to experience.

Shortly before I left for Los Angeles, before Generation-X became the cute catch phrase of middle age journalists, TIME Magazine featured an article on the lost generation of America. It stated that we were a new group of young adults, "lost" because we didn’t have heroes like Kennedy or Martin Luther King in our lives, we’d discovered government was corrupt, religion didn’t hold all the answers, and our parents were much more fallible than we’d ever suspected. We had no faith in anything or anyone. The myths weren’t working anymore, and the world was missing the heroes that one so desperately needs while growing up. But I found those heroes in the dreamers at Rocky, and then in the SCA. I found something quite heroic in those of you who were the geeks, the freaks, and the outcasts, who stood up and shined every time you yelled, "Asshole!" or "Slut!". We were defiant against the world, bravely building a community of fun and friendship, and determined to create a place to call home.

Yes, I know I was lost during those years in many ways, but at least I always knew how to find my way home. Fridays and Saturdays, midnight, at The Ken Theater.

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