Ashford, who won her 2015 Tony for her performance in You Can't Take It With You, and who returned to Broadway last fall in Sylvia, will play the role of the "feisty live-in groupie" Columbia, originated on Broadway by Boni Enten and played in the cult film by the top-hat-wearing Nell Campbell (billed as "Little Nell").
Tim Curry, who created the iconic role of "sweet transvestite" mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the original London, Broadway and film versions, recently joined the cast as The Criminologist who narrates the story.
Also previously announced for the cast: "American Idol" finalist and "Glee" actor Adam Lambert as Eddie, Victoria Justice (“Victorious”) as Janet Weiss and Ryan McCartan (“Liv & Maddie,” Heathers the Musical) as Brad Majors.
Laverne Cox, the ground-breaking transgender actress who earned an Emmy Award nomination for her performance on "Orange Is the New Black," will star as Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
Actor and singer Staz Nair will play the title role of a hot young man created in the laboratory to fulfill Frank's desires. Reeve Carney, who created the title role of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark on Broadway, has been cast as Frank's helper, Riff Raff. Additional cast members are yet to be announced.
Emmy Award winner Kenny Ortega (“High School Musical” franchise, “This Is It,” “Descendants,” “Hocus Pocus,” “Newsies”) will direct, choreograph and executive-produce "Rocky Horror" for Fox.
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" follows sweethearts Janet Weiss and Brad Majors, who stumble upon Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s bizarre abode. Frank-N-Furter, a sexually ambiguous, flirtatious alien mad-scientist, is holding an annual, Transylvanian science convention to showcase the birth of "Rocky Horror" – a fit, attractive man created solely to fulfill Frank's desires.
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was adapted from the 1973 West End musical The Rocky Horror Show, which ran only 45 performances on Broadway in 1975. The film, which came out just a few months later, used several members of the Broadway cast, including Tim Curry, Richard O’Brien (also the composer/lyricist/librettist) and Meat Loaf. Richard O'Brien wrote the stage version and collaborated with Jim Sharman on the film, which was also directed by Sharman.
Among highlights of the score are “Time Warp” and “Sweet Transvestite (from Transylvania).”
The film was not a hit in its original release, but soon developed into a favorite in midnight screenings at which fans dressed up like the characters and answered the dialogue on the screen.
