The idea that this is going to be a different kind of season at the Worcester Foothills Theatre Company was made screamingly clear at this year's stART on the Street festival where the appearance of two characters from its season-opening production of "The Rocky Horror Show" caused quite a stir.

"Rocky showed up in his gold shorts and boots with an amazing body and Magenta was also there in her domestic outfit," says Russell Garrett, recently named the company's permanent artistic director. It was a well-placed publicity bonanza. "I'm not above sending out a beautiful man barely dressed to get attention," he says proudly.

Garrett specifically wanted to start the Foothills schedule with a production not quite so predictable or traditional as "Beehive" and "Forever Plaid," its most recent season openers. Thus it opens its 2006-2007 slate with a show that might very well scare the living daylights - if not change the very life - of some of its longtime theatergoers. On the other hand, it should attract an audience that has never taken in a show at the venue located in the courtyard of Worcester City Square (formerly the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets Mall). It should make watching the two cultures clash part of the fun.

And that, if you're not familiar with the play - which was written by Richard O'Brien, is a big part of any "Rocky Horror" performance. Thanks to a tradition that began at midnight movie screenings of the movie version - "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" - in New York City 30 years ago, many attending anything under the "Rocky Horror" name can be expected to throw rice at the end of its opening wedding scene, throw toast when the legendary Dr. Frank-N-Furter proposes a toast, and fire water pistols during a thunderstorm greeting main characters Brad and Janet - two squeaky clean young adults engaged to be married - while others pull the day's newspaper over their heads. The story follows Brad and Janet's misadventures down a back road where a blown-out tire leads them to a country castle resided by a true house of freaks - think of the monsters made famous in the 1950s and 1960s horror movies - who have no intention of letting them call a tow truck.

If this sounds a bit out-of-hand for some of you - and Rocky Horror veterans have a name for you: "virgins" - don't worry. Just think of it as going to the biggest audience participation show of all time. And keep in mind that for all the audience antics attributed to it, the production itself demands top rate enthusiastic singing backed by great harmonies.

"Even if you were just doing it completely straight, there's a lot of really good songs in it with great melodies," Garrett says. The soundtrack includes '70s and '80s club dance anthem "The Time Warp;" hearing it performed live by the Foothills cast is a memorable experience.

Each stage version of Rocky Horror has its uniqueness. "There are some productions where they hold hand-held mics and they update the look of it to be very leather and studded collars and make it a very S&M-type look," he says. "I didn't really want to do that for my production because I wanted it to be not quite so aggressive or bombastic. I didn't want it to be a rock concert but there are elements of rock 'n' roll, there's elements of pop, there's even a ballad in the show that has a little country feel to it."

Musical director and keyboardist Fred Frabotta leads the Rocky Horror Band featuring Zach Chadwick on reeds, guitarist Kevin Grudecki, bassist Steve Skrop, and percussionist Pieter Struyk. They're all top-notch musicians who've played with past Foothills presentations.

It's a challenge to freshly present a play whose every line has been memorized by millions.

"I found people that I thought were right for the way I wanted to present this show, very much wanting to honor the memory of the movie in people's minds, but not asking these actors to imitate the movie," Garrett says. "They're finding their own fun things to do and their own funny moments so that it isn't just a rehash of the movie."

The movie version's most lasting memory is Tim Curry's performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, "The Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania" dressed in a corset, fishnet stockings, and high heels. He promises to get the freaked-out Brad a "satanic mechanic" and welcomes him and Janet to "come up to the lab and see what's on the slab." What was on the slab was golden boy Rocky, Dr. Frank-N-Furter's Frankenstein-like attempt to create the perfect hunk.

"Tim Curry's performance in the movie is amazing," Garrett says. "There was no template, there was no blueprint for this character. He just had an open canvas and created this outrageous character and it's held up all these years later."

Jon Peterson plays the role of Frank-N-Furter at Foothills. "He's very different [as Frank]," Garrett says, "but he's also mesmerizing onstage. I wanted him to bring his own qualities to that role and see what he would do with it." Think of Peterson's Frank as the friend you think you know but know if you're wrong, he could lead you to ruin, however pleasant that ruin might be.

Peter Adams, who is playing the duel roles of Eddie (made famous in the movie version by Meatloaf) and Dr. Everett V. Scott, had his first "Rocky Horror" experience as a teenager when he got to see the original London touring cast production at the old Boston Opera House.

"I always knew I was going to go into theater and I always loved the musicals, so we would go see every musical that was in Boston," he says.

While at college, his school theater group followed an almost-weekly tradition that once their own show got out at 11 p.m., they would transform themselves for the midnight showing of "Rocky Horror" at the old Exeter Street Theater in Boston.

"It was almost like a religious experience, like clockwork, that everybody booked it in the car with our Rocky Horror costumes in the back seat or the trunk that we would dress once we got there," says Adams, who estimates he saw the movie at least 50 or 60 times during his four years of college.

"Everybody would always dress up as his or her favorite character. I always went as Brad. I had my father's tortoise shell goofy glasses that were broken, and my goofy jacket covered with my musical pens. We would bring our shopping bags full of toast and Great Scott tissue roll paper, squirt guns and newspapers for the rain."

Theaters used to hire workers to dress as the movie's characters and dance in front of the screen; eventually, as the movie's cult status grew, no one could really tell the difference between staff and customers. "It was almost like a duel," Adams says. "The Franks especially - if you came dressed as Frank, you wanted to be up onstage in those heels so it was almost like dueling Franks."

In the Foothills' "Rocky Horror," Adams' Eddie is a '50s-style biker with a visible persona, he says, like that of the overweight Elvis Presley, minus he hopes, the King's latter-day character. His other role, that of German scientist Dr. Scott "is kind of a combination of Colonel Klink and Sgt. Schultz of 'Hogan's Heroes,' Artie Johnson of 'Laugh-In,' and Franz Liebkind, composer of 'Springtime for Hitler' in 'The Producers' - "all those wacky German characters that ever existed," says Adams.

Just so you don't feel that you missed out on a landmark time in our cultural history, Foothills will be selling a "Rocky Horror" kit including toilet tissue, noisemakers, confetti, a newspaper, and glow stick so that attendees can become part of the show. The show is definitely not being toned down for Worcester audiences. "We're just going to sort of let it be what it is," Garrett says. "We want to let the audience dictate to us what it will be. We're not quite sure what to expect from show to show. We might have some performances where the audience just sits there and watches and listens to the show while the late night audiences might yell back and participate like they do at the movie."

Two general admission late night 11 p.m. performances on Friday the 13th and October 20 promise to be memorable events. "We're really trying to get the word out that that's kind of for those people who are ardent fans who want the late night experience and want to come and be crazy, to come in costume and yell at the actors and all that stuff," Garrett says. "I think the 11 o'clock show is going to be more like taming the day care center."

"The Rocky Horror Show" runs through Oct. 22 at the Worcester Foothills Theatre Company, 100 Front St., Worcester. For tickets, call 508-754-4018 or visit foothillstheatre.com.