18 year old Produces ROCKY HORROR Benefit on Broadway

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 12:59pm

She's a freshman at Tisch:

"An interesting thing about the perky redhead playing Janet in the benefit concert performance of “The Rocky Horror Show” at the American Airlines Theater Monday night: She’s not only the lead actress, but get this, she’s also the event’s producer.

Oh, and there’s another thing, something that even many of the performers in the show don’t know.

“She’s 18 years old?” asked Kevin Cahoon, who is starring as Dr. Frank ’N’ Furter. “I didn’t know that.”

It’s true: Rachel Helson, a freshman at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, is 18. Also, this is her third production. She put on two previous performances of “The Rocky Horror Show” in Louisville, Ky., in 2004 and 2005, both benefits for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a foundation that supports breast cancer research.

The first one she produced when she was 15. It raised $12,000.

Perky is almost too mild a word for Ms. Helson. (Her e-mail messages are signed, “Have a gorgeous day!”) And though her weekly schedule is crammed with 30 hours of class and studio time, plus homework, and this enormous undertaking, she seems as tired as a hummingbird.

Ms. Helson has always been a theater baby, starting her stage career in an elementary-school production of “Cinderella,” then performing in productions at the Walden Theater in Louisville and even coming to New York to study theater during summers in high school.

But in July 2004, two weeks after the fourth of her aunts received a diagnosis of breast cancer, Ms. Helson decided she would organize a benefit for a breast cancer awareness group, and she wrote the Komen foundation saying as much.

“We thought, ‘Oh, how cute, this little girl’ — who was 15 at the time — ‘wants to do a play for us,’ ” said Stacey Hallahan, the president of the Louisville chapter of Komen for the Cure.

Within six weeks Ms. Helson had started a production company, booked a 619-seat theater at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, engaged corporate sponsors, lined up the rights to “The Rocky Horror Show,” wrangled the talent, sold the tickets, put on the show for one night and raised that $12,000. (She did have some help from her parents and her director, Gil Donovan Reyes, who was 25 at the time.)

It turned out to be the largest generator of revenue for the local Komen chapter outside of events organized by the chapter itself. That is, until the next year, when Ms. Helson’s production raised $25,000.

“Nobody hands us checks this big,” Ms. Hallahan said.

True, the Helsons are somebodies in Louisville. Her father, Timothy, is the president of Golden Brands, a company that processes vegetable oils into shortening. Her mother, Jan, is the executive vice president. The couple also run a development corporation. This was Rachel’s project — she hatched the idea, wrote the letters and made the phone calls — but their connections didn’t hurt.

Then Ms. Helson got into N.Y.U. And decided to stage the benefit for a third time. On Broadway.

“While I was here, I thought, ‘You know, why not?’ ” she said over coffee at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill in the Village.

The commercial theater landlords turned her down, but the nonprofit Roundabout Theater Company regularly rents its houses, and, after lining up “Prelude to a Kiss,” which is now playing there, Roundabout agreed to rent the 740-seat theater to Ms. Helson’s production company for one night.

At around $17,000, the theater rental is practically the only expense.

Responding to Ms. Helson’s persistent pleading via e-mail, Richard O’Brien, the author of “The Rocky Horror Show,” gave her permission to produce a concert version in New York and waived the licensing fee. Almost all the talent is donated: the makeup and hair people, for example, are volunteers, flying in from a salon in Louisville.

As for the cast, Ms. Helson, by simply sending e-mail messages to agents, managers, promotional Web sites and just about any other address she could find, lined up some names, at least in theater circles.

In addition to Mr. Cahoon, the production features Kate Reinders (“Good Vibrations,” “Wicked”) and Neil Patrick Harris, a last-minute replacement as the narrator. Mr. Reyes, the director, is flying in on Saturday to run rehearsals all weekend (and is showing serious stamina in his own right: less than three weeks from today he will be getting a kidney transplant).

So far, Ms. Helson said, the event has raised $29,000 in ticket sales and an additional $33,000 in corporate sponsorship.

That sort of accomplishment is not terribly common as a freshman extracurricular activity, said Mary Schmidt Campbell, the dean of the Tisch School of the Arts.

“From my experience I don’t know of another student anywhere who has produced a show on Broadway,” Ms. Campbell said. Students at Tisch are by nature ambitious, she added, but “in terms of the scale of her ambition, this rates up there 10-plus.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/theater/13horr.html?ref=theater

[Weez]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:08pm

That is absolutely amazing. Not only that she's merely 18, but everything she's done! I know feel like a washed-up failure at the age of 24...

[withoutlovewithoutU]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:09pm

Man... I feel like one lazy 17 year old now.
That's really amazing.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:13pm

That's phenominal! Good for her!

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:13pm

And casting herself in the lead. Something I certainly never had the guts to do (or even thought to do, for that matter) when I produced benefits!

[Danielm]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:21pm

Wow, she sounds pretty amazing.

Janet is really not the lead role--that would be Frank-n-furter.

[sally1112]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:34pm

I saw the production here in Louisville. It was so goo that I saw it twice.
The staging was great, I had seen it done live one other time here at Actor's Theater of Louisville, which hosts The Humana Festival of Plays, and this production was much better. Well acted to boot!

[sally1112]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:35pm

I saw the production here in Louisville. It was so good that I saw it twice.
The staging was great, I had seen it done live one other time here at Actor's Theater of Louisville, which hosts The Humana Festival of Plays, and this production was much better. Well acted to boot!

[Cages or Wings]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:35pm

She is also very cool and down to earth. Not to mention a talented actress.

[Sykes24]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 1:41pm

Thats fantastic---- read in Edge Magazine the guy producing Mr. Broadway is only 19! Way to go young producers!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 2:19pm

Rath, what is it, exactly or approximately, you would like to be a model of around here?

Integrity? Taste? Intelligence? Kindness? Rage? Vituperativeness? (That last one's a given.)

It's clear you hold yourself up as something, it's just hard to get a handle on what.

Given the sheer enormous amount of work this young woman accomplishes at such a young age, I say let her play ALL the roles if she'd like. Maybe someday she'll produce a benefit concert of The Producers and you can stand behind her Ulla as one of the grandmas with a walker attempting to do a shuffle-ball-change. But I doubt it.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 2:21pm

Namo, what the f is your damage??? I made a STATEMENT. Take whatever you want out of it, but stop jacking threads with your off-base inner monologues.

Especially this one. It doesn't deserve it.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 2:38pm

Did you just learn about "inner monologue" in some class of yours?

As you pointed out today, it's a public message board, ergo it's not an inner monologue.

I think this young woman should be celebrated. Therefore it came as no surprise to read a catty comment from you about the very subject.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 2:40pm

Again, your powers of mind-reading fail you.

Crawl back in your hole and let this young woman be celebrated here.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:02pm

Namo can read minds?

He's bulimic?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:04pm

Wow, anything's possible!!!!!!!!!!!

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:06pm

Wow what an achievement!

[jpbran]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:09pm

"He's bulimic?"

Yay for Zoolander references!!!

"I was the fat kid in school."
"Ew!"

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:27pm

this is being produced in a Broadway house, right? does that technically make it a Tony-eligible show? I would LOVE for a girl like this to be handed a Special Theatrical Event award.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 4:30pm

One Night Only concerts are not eligible for Tony Awards (remember shows have to run long enough for the 750 voters to see it).

[thejcm]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 5:00pm

I was IN one of the Louisville productions (2005) and let me tell you that Rachel and Gil really "get" Rocky. I assure those of you who are going, the show will be a blast! Plus, Rachel's a GREAT singer. Kind of a young Alice Ripley (whom I love).

My hairdresser is one of the people who will be doing hair/makeup for the show and she's terribly excited. I actually got my hair cut by her yesterday and she said they're flying up on Sunday (and the show is Monday...yikes!)

Break a leg Rachel and Gil!

[sidneybruhl]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 5:16pm

Saw the poster for this in Colony when I was in NYC and, as I am a Kentuckian myself, felt very proud. A remarkable accomplishment for such a young woman!

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 5:23pm

I think I love you Namo...

Not as much as Debra Monk or Curtains... but I love you.

Ooops, Is this thread jacking?.... God knows I never want to be accused of THAT..

[Mistress_Spouzic]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 5:54pm

im going! i love Rocky Horror!

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 8:04pm

Wow. I'm 16. I should get off my butt and do something productive.