Rocky 1, 2, 3, and 4

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Algernon Williams, Micheal Skyers and Rob Grose as the three Rockies(3,1 and 2) in London, 1999

The Rockies are the box cars in the freght train from the musical Starlight Express. They are energetic characters, who are great break dancers. There were originally three but a fourth was added for the show on Broadway, to reflect the fact that by then the fourth Rocky movie had been released. There were four Rockies in the Japan/Australia tour, the Bochum production and the later Japan tour. However the fourth Rocky was cut from the remaining Bochum production in 1990. He was never inserted into the London production.

In the latest US tour and UK tour productions, the Rockies have been replaced by the Hip Hoppers. In 2007 they took over on the Bochum stage.

[edit] Musical Numbers

The Rockies sing during Freight. However, their featured numbers are The Rap and Right Place, Right Time.

[edit] Costume

A close up of Christian Hante as Rocky II, Bochum 1997

The Rockies draw inspiration from boxers, being box cars (as Richard Stilgoe is fond of his puns), in their padded hats and cropped vests. Their costumes are based on a unitard of wood-grain painted lycra, to give the impression that parts of their bodies are made from planks of wood. They have boxer shorts in metallic leather, decorated with studs to look like riveted panels of wood. Their accessories reflect their status as strong weight-carriers, with gloves, gauntlets and kneepads all bigger than other characters'. The London Rockies are all identical apart from their belts, which label them by number. In London they had no shoulder boxes, and no sleeves.

Frank Mastrocola, Angel Vargas, Sean Grant and Ronald Garza as the four Rockies on Broadway in 1987

The Broadway Rockies were redesigned to show no skin, which allowed the insertion of padding into their new sleeves to make their muscles look bigger. They were generally made more square and boxy, with shoulder pads and bigger hats. They all say Rock Island on them, adding to the Rock pun. They were all individual colours, red, yellow, green and blue respective to numbers. All other productions' Rockies are this design. They have two sets of shoulders each - a large one with jointed ends that can flip up for Freight(see left), and streamlined armour with no jutting out ends for greater flexibility in the song Right Place, Right Time(see below).

[edit] Hip Hoppers

The Hip Hoppers were invented for the second US Tour(2003), in an attempt to bring the show more up to date. Based on 1990s rappers, their costumes bear a strong resemblance to the On Ice Rockies with baggy shirts, parachute pants(unfortunately held in at the knee by their kneepads, which disrupts the line) and headwraps. They originally had fast rapping to replace the Rockies' dialogue and recitative, but this was removed shortly into the US tour and never made it onto the UK tour. Now they have the same lines and tracks as the Rockies, but say 'Hip Hopper' instead of 'Rocky' - they even now say that they are box cars. The choreography to Freight and Right Place, Right Time was updated to remove boxing references. When they arrived on the Bochum stage in 2006, the choreography was further overhauled to fill in the gaps left by the removal of the Rockies' signature moves, and now looks much more like commercial dance.

[edit] Actors

[edit] External links

[Belle's Domain] character gallery on dedicated fansite