Frank-N-Furter coming home

Hamilton, Ohio – Kind of appropriate she gets the big 11 o’clock number.

When Dr. Frank-N-Furter sings “I’m Going Home” during the Fitton Center’s annual tumble into the depravity of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – a 10 p.m. October 31 screening on Halloween night, no less – his shadow-cast doppelganger will know the feeling.

Kara Scene - not the name on her birth certificate - is a Hamilton resident. She showed artwork at the Fitton Center as a student at Butler Tech School of the Arts a decade ago. Since 2022, she’s been part of The Denton Affair, the Cincinnati-based shadow-cast troupe that turns the annual Rocky Horror screening into a night of delightful debauchery.

“The Fitton always holds a special place in my heart,” she said. “It’s the first place I performed. I’ll have a lot of friends and family there supporting me.”

Kara played Magenta in her debut Fitton performance. Last fall she appeared as Janet Weiss. But this year she steps into the platform heels and pearl necklace made famous on stage and screen by Tim Curry.

“I want play all of them, but of all the characters, Frank is probably the most fun,” she said. “It’s such an honor to play Frank (editor’s note: a role she started playing in March of this year), but especially there in Hamilton where I started.“He’s a big drama queen. He’s pretty social. Affirmatively pansexual. Frank is fully out there as himself and that’s a way for me to bare my self and be the real me. It’s great to see local queer expression in art.”

Kara said her favorite number in the show comes when the rocker Eddie escapes the freezer and sings “Hot Patootie, Bless My Soul” – “It’s fun, it’s high-paced and I love Meatloaf,” she said – but she’s most looking forward to that climactic farewell tune.

“’I’m Going Home’ is just a moment for Frank and for me,” she said. “It may be kind of a slow song – I mean, Magenta literally yawns in the middle of it – but it’s all about Frank. The lights are all on him and that’s pretty cool to get to play that.”

In addition to her role as a performer, Kara also serves as a coordinator for The Denton Affair. Among her responsibilities are wigs, makeup and costumes for the cast. (In fact, she was sewing her own costumes while on the phone for this story. By showtime, she’ll have more than 20 hours invested in creating one particular costume piece alone.)

But the performance part really revs her engine.

“It’s fun to see people have fun and get out of their comfort zone,” she said. “This is very much out of a lot of people’s comfort zone and that’s OK. Just go with it. Come as you are. Dress as slutty as you want and have a great time with it. It’s a show. Have fun.”

Tickets to The Rocky Horror Picture Show are $12 for Fitton Center members, $14 for non-members, and are available online right here, by phone at 513-863-8873, ext. 110 or in person at the Fitton Center box office. In addition to The Denton Affair’s survival kits, there will be a cash bar and popcorn available for purchase.

The Fitton Center for Creative Arts is located at 101 S. Monument Avenue on the Riverfront in downtown Hamilton, Ohio.

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