The Run-Through with Vogue
Luke Evans and Sam Pinkleton on Reviving The Rocky Horror Show
17 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the excitement around the opening night of The Rocky Horror Show?
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This is The Run-Through. I'm Marlee Marius, Senior Editor of Features and News. Today I'm joined in the studio by Luke Evans and Sam Pinkleton, the star and director, respectively, of the Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, which has actually just been extended through July 19th, very exciting, due to untamed demand, as the press release said. Untamed.
And I was like, honestly, sure, totally, I see that. Before we really get into it, what are we wearing today? Let's start with you, Luke.
Chapter 2: How do Luke Evans and Sam Pinkleton feel about the rehearsal process?
Oh, I'm wearing Todd Snyder.
Oh, fab.
And some Levi's.
Okay, cool. Yeah, I like this jaunty tie. I like this jaunty jacket.
Yeah, I love it. I chose it out of a pile of ties. I love the paisley, a little homage, part of the paisley design. It's just nice, you know, when you're wearing fishnets, jockstrap, and corset eight times a week. Totally. Clothes on.
You can do it all. You can wear it all. It's amazing.
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Chapter 3: What was the significance of the Vogue photoshoot for the cast?
And you, Sam, what's the shirt?
The shirt is Acne. It's Acne from the, like, super headquarters in Stockholm. Oh, I love that. And I've never seen it anywhere else, and I love it so much.
I love it so good.
Did you go to Stockholm to buy it? I did. I mean, I didn't just go to Stockholm to buy a shirt.
If you go to Stockholm and you like clothes, you have to go to the Acne Show. Correct.
No, this is fab. Well, okay. Congratulations to you both, certainly, on this show. I went with my mom to the matinee on Sunday, and we had such a good time.
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Chapter 4: How does Luke Evans describe his journey to playing Frank-N-Furter?
It was so fab. It's funny to walk into a show on 3 p.m. on a Sunday and just sort of be like, what am I in for? And then it being amazing and you walk out and it's fab. We stage doored. It was a whole thing.
Incredible. Yeah.
My mom is obsessed with doing this. Like she loves to have everything signed. So we had the whole experience and it was, yeah, it was so exciting. So congratulations.
Did I sign it?
You sure did. You sort of saw your adorable dog.
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Chapter 5: What parallels does Sam Pinkleton draw between Dr. Frank-N-Furter and Mary Todd Lincoln?
Oh, you had a Lala.
You had a Lala. It's a stage door moment.
More on her later.
Exactly.
We're going to circle right back to that. But at the time of recording, we are, I think, a week out from opening night.
One week.
How are we feeling, guys?
I'm good. I'm ready. I'm like, every day we finish the show, we spend every afternoon rehearsing for five hours. Tweaking, layering, adding nuance, you know, doing all these fun, exciting things. And then we put them in every night and I go home and I decompress, send Sam about 300 text messages. And I'm sure he's like closing his eyes in the phone with texts again.
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Chapter 6: How do Luke and Sam perceive the differences between Broadway and West End audiences?
Just because I'm present in that moment and talk about the experience and what I think worked. And I love it. And I think you enjoy it too, the process of tech. Of course. Because it's... It's like you still have the license and the freedom to try things and change things up.
But if we open tomorrow, I feel very, very good about what we have, where we are at, and how I feel when I walk out on that stage. So that's a nice feeling.
How are you feeling today?
I feel giddy. It's like always with live theater, you could tinker until death. And at a certain point, you have to be like, pencils down. And I think with this show especially, I mean, we've had such a good time making it. And we have such deep love, not only for each other, but for the material. That the experience of previewing it has really just been about...
Chapter 7: What challenges did they face in casting the ensemble for The Rocky Horror Show?
getting to know the audience. And at a certain point, you have to be like, okay, we have it. I definitely, I do obsess about details. I think one of the reasons why we work so well together is because at midnight, we are both like very excited to talk about details that only matter to you and I. And it's time, like it's time to just have a show. And I'm so proud of it. Yeah.
That's very exciting. And I mean, I guess maybe we can jump right into that. I mean, everyone sort of has their sort of Rocky Horror origin story. And I'd love for you guys to both kind of talk about how this show kind of first came into your lives.
Luke's is better than mine.
It's not that great. I mean, firstly, I mean, I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. So this kind of show... would never have been seen on my television at home.
Chapter 8: What advice do Luke Evans and Sam Pinkleton have for aspiring musical theater performers?
Sure, sure. Or I wouldn't have seen it on screen in a cinema or definitely wouldn't have been to the theater to watch it. So I was very late to being introduced to the show. And it was actually when I was in musical theater college, when I was in London and I was about 19 and we did a showcase.
And we were asked to pick a song from a show that was showy and impressed the potential agents in the audience. Sure. I chose Sweet Transvestite. I mean, extraordinary how I chose that song, because I went on and played Chris in Miss Saigon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all these very macho... It was lurking underneath the whole time. It was just there.
I thought maybe this is my last time to do something crazy, because in musical theatre college, it's a bit like fame, you know. You shut off the time. You can just do what you want and wear your ankle warmers and prance around King's Cross and, you know, do that. And I was coming to the end of it, so maybe it was my last hurrah of being...
Free and liberated and do something so sort of against type for me. Sure, yeah. Which is sort of the attraction that drew me to it 35 years later is this immense challenge for me and what people think of me and who I am. Yeah. To answer your question, it was when I was 19 years old. Sam?
I knew the iconography of Rocky Horror just from being a human being. Like, I knew what it looked like, I knew fishnets, I knew Tim Curry, I knew. But I don't think I saw it until college. And the thing I remember is feeling rage, deep rage, that I had not seen it sooner. I grew up in a small town in Virginia.
And it just was a thing that I think would have been a liberating force for me if I had encountered it when I was 13.
That's interesting, yeah.
And I felt like I was denied something. In a way, the gift of getting to do this now on Broadway, I've been working on... a version of The Rocky Horror Show for like eight years. And so, so much of that work has been just talking to people whose lives have been affected by The Rocky Horror Show. And so many people have that story.
Oh, I saw it when I was 15 and I realized that something else was possible for me. So I think I have a little bit of bitterness that I don't get to have that story.
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