Los Alamos Reporter

Halloween Rocky Horror Picture Show Performances Raise Almost $2,300 For Northern New Mexico’s LGBTQ Youth

BY MAURA TAYLOR
Executive Director
Self Help, LLC

The Los Alamos Creative District’s first annual production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on October 29 and 30 raised close to $2300 for Self Help, Inc.’s Techo Fund, which provides housing assistance for vulnerable queer youth throughout Northern New Mexico.

New and long-time fans alike streamed into the Los Alamos Little Theater on Halloween weekend for two sold-out showings of Los Alamos’s first-ever live shadow cast production of the Picture Show, directed by David Daniel.

Viewers arrived clad in a wide variety of costumes, with their usual facemasks upgraded with images of the iconic Rocky Horror lips. After purchasing drinks from Bathtub Row Brewing Co-op in the lobby they settled in, shivering with anticipation, for what was to be a full-throttle show with all the hallmarks of a classic Rocky Horror experience.

To take part in all the fun, viewers purchased prop bags with all the essential audience participation props needed throughout the show—and they shook out their newspapers and threw their cards for a cause. All proceeds from the prop bags were given to Self Help’s Techo Fund.

All in all, the Fund netted almost $2,300 from prop bag sales and community donations at the event, enough funds to help up to a dozen housing-insecure LGBT youth with needs such as hotel vouchers, rental deposits, utility bills, and basic furnishings. As they did the time warp, audience members helped Self Help provide a place for people to lay their heads.

Self Help would like to thank the many, many people who came together to make such a great event possible: the Los Alamos Creative District, David Daniel, the Los Alamos Little Theater, and a host of performers and crew members who put on an incredible show; Chandra Marsden, who crafted remarkable costumes with true Transylvanian style; Friends of Los Alamos Pride, The Los Alamos Derby Dames, and Bathtub Row Brewing Co-op, who brought the party and helped everything come together; and event sponsors Atomic Realty, Boomerang Consignment, Papa Murphy’s Pizza, En Pointe, and Pig+Fig Café, whose sponsorships made the prop bag fundraiser possible by helping cover the event’s other costs.

And of course, thanks are in order to audiences themselves, who sold out both shows, participated thoroughly, and did so for a cause.

To learn more about Techo Fund, visit selfhelpla.org/techo.