History: Communion Era (1995-2000)

STARLITE DINNER THEATER – East Hartford, CT: December 1995 – August 1996
AS220 – Providence, RI: March 1996 – August 1998
MEADOWBROOK CINEMAS, Warwick, RI: April 1996 – February 2000

Parallel operations becoming one mark this transitional time.

1995 – 1997

The APP operation was without a home theater doing what needed to be done to keep the cast alive. All difficulty aside, we did learn a lot. We continued to seek the semi-regular road shows and got them in Southern New England. Now the most visited venue was the Starlight Dinner Theater in Hartford, CT. We also worked with the new cast, the Teseracte Players. We even developed a 47 minute Rocky Horror slide show that was built for small venues and generated a dozen performances at AS200 in Providence. We were still able to land those really “big” road shows like The Guarde in New London and continued big events like the Bristol Parade. We could do a lot when we had a place to do it. Also, without a regular theater, some cast members began to fade away in availability.

1996 – 1997

The other operation was going on back at the MBC. In the 3 years since we had left, the movie was shown but none of the new casts emerging stayed around for long. In that time, there had been multiple casts and 12 different cast directors that came and went. However, finally, one young group did emerge and stay that was refreshing and impressive. They were called the “RKO Players” who began in 1996. The one improvement that they had since we had left the MBC was that ownership had taken a step back and management was thus able to do a better job.

1997 – 1999

In 1997, the RKO Players had a group of disciplined young actors. APP had experience and equipment. The Absolute Pleasure Players and the RKO Players just … became one. This was the greatest non-story in our history. It was not planned, negotiated, or agreed upon. There was no “agreement” or “merger” to settle anyone’s ego or role. There were no proclamations. This was not “2 casts working together”. There was no period of adjustment. There was no identity of being “RKO” or “APP”. All cast members just started doing all operations either one had previously developed as if they had been together all along. It was all about the Show and the focus was on the events rather than the group or any individuals.

We had more memorable nights again here. The biggest was week 600, when we first did Shock Treatment.

2000

In early 2000, the almost 13 year run of RHPS at the MBC, and the MBC itself, came to a grinding financial end.