Margaret Cho is the new Narrator in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of “The Rocky Horror Show” at Studio 54. She made her Broadway debut in the part on Tuesday, Nov. 3, Playbill reported. “The dream of my childhood is officially coming true,” Cho wrote on her website on Oct. 20, a day after the casting news broke.
She took over from Rachel Dratch, who played her last show Sunday, Nov. 1. “A first night out on Broadway. Margaret Cho is your Narrator in Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show,” the production’s X account posted Nov. 4, in a post embedded by BroadwayWorld.
Cho, 57, gave her predecessors a shout-out. “Thank you @raedratch and @rosie for doing this role justice!” she wrote. Rosie O’Donnell had stepped in for two weeks in October while Dratch was on leave, People reported.
Margaret Cho Gets to ‘Finally Be It’ at Studio 54
Her announcement opens with “IT’S ALIVE!!!!” and gets right to it. “I’m going to be the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, and now I don’t actually have to dream it anymore,” Cho wrote. Then came the capital letters: “I CAN FINALLY BE IT!!!!!!!!”
Cho, whose screen work runs from “Face/Off” to “Hacks,” has described herself as bisexual, with one caveat. “Maybe ‘pansexual’ is technically the more correct term but I like ‘bisexual’ because it’s kind of ’70s,” she told HuffPost in 2018. “There’s something very chic about that word and I guess that’s probably the right one for me.”
Director Sam Pinkleton described the show to Broadway.com in February. “It’s made out of everything that I love, which is like weirdos and trash and a kind of strange earnestness,” he said.
Rosie O’Donnell’s Two Weeks as the ‘Rocky Horror’ Narrator
O’Donnell got a standing ovation just for walking on. “I had never seen anyone get a standing ovation before they speak as they enter the stage. So when it happened, I almost didn’t know what to do, and then I got all choked up,” she told Broadway.com in October. “And then I thought, ‘Don’t cry because you’re going to forget your lines.'”
Her own history with “Rocky Horror” starts at the movies. “When I was a young kid, I would see it and I didn’t fully understand it,” she said. “It was just a fun thing to do at midnight. When you’re in high school, that feels very naughty.”
Dratch was the revival’s opening-night Narrator, and hers “freely breaks the fourth wall,” New York Theatre Guide critic Austin Fimmano wrote in April. It earned her a Tony nomination. “In all my career, the only place that lives up to the dream of showbiz is Broadway,” O’Donnell said.
Jake Shears, Kevin McHale and the Rest of Cho’s Castmates
Jake Shears has played Frank-N-Furter, the part the late Tim Curry originated in London in 1973, since Sept. 11, Broadway.com reported. “Jake Shears is absolutely fantastic as Frank-N-Furter. There’s just talent everywhere you look on that stage,” O’Donnell said.
Kevin McHale and Lorna Courtney are Brad and Janet now, part of the changes announced with Shears’ casting in July. “The whole cast is a big mishmash of the queer community. The production crew and the people, the actors in it. It’s just so beautiful,” O’Donnell said.
Sherie Rene Scott plays Magenta, and O’Donnell knows who should be singing. “I’m not a singer, but I love musicals,” she said, before joking: “Sherie Rene needs to do the ballad, not me.”
Valentina plays Columbia, George Salazar doubles as Eddie and Dr. Scott, Jimin Moon is Rocky, and Amber Gray, as Riff Raff, is the last lead left from opening night, Playbill’s cast listing shows. “Studio 54 heightens this, that something can be ridiculous and trashy and messy and queer and also like dead serious and so big-hearted,” Pinkleton told Broadway.com before previews began.
Seeing Margaret Cho in ‘Rocky Horror’: Tickets and Closing Date
The revival extended a fourth time on Nov. 2 and now closes May 30, 2027, Broadway.com reported. Roundabout’s own ticket page still said “Now through February 28, 2027” on Saturday morning, and Playbill says that’s as far as tickets go for now.
Nobody has announced when Cho’s run ends. The show runs “1 hour and 50 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission,” at Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., Roundabout says.
Broadway.com’s listing had tickets from $62.54 on Saturday for shows Tuesday through Sunday, with a warning that the show “contains haze, fog, strobe effects, and sexual content.”
Roundabout also has a word for the midnight-movie crowd. “The call-outs that many people know are part of the culture, but we also want to balance the experience for the audience members who want to hear the musical and give respect to the live human actors who are onstage performing,” the theater says. Its advice: “Choose your call-outs carefully.”
“See you on Broadway!” Cho wrote.
