“From Transssssexual, Transylvania. “
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How d’you do? I see you’ve met my faithful muscleman. Macho man Luke Evans will play Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, the Roundabout Theatre Company said on October 29. The role will be Evans’s Broadway debut. Evans began his career on London’s West End in musicals but is best known for starring in Disney’s 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast as Gaston. Frank-N-Furter is typically played by a lithe, gender-bending, grimy showperson— most famously by Tim Curry in the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but also recently by Laverne Cox in the Fox special. It’s certainly nontraditional casting to have the part played by someone who would look totally hot in Rocky’s gold bootie shorts. Although, to be fair, Evans also owns a gay underwear and swimwear brand, and Frank would love to dress some hot patooties.
Previews for The Rocky Horror Show will begin March 26, 2026, ahead of an April 23 opening. It will play at Studio 54 for a limited run only through July 21. The production, which has not confirmed further casting, will be helmed by Oh, Mary! director Sam Pinkleton. “I’m giddy to crack this untamable classic open with the razor-sharp Luke Evans at the center,” Pinkleton said in a statement. “And I hope to do at Studio 54 what The Rocky Horror Show has done for people around the world for decades — open a dimension to another possible reality. It seriously is the honor of a lifetime to bring the freakiest people I’ve ever met into the freakiest theatre I’ve ever been in to revisit the freakiest show there’s ever been. No pressure, of course.” Audiences are already quivering with anticip—
ation.
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