Houston’s own Colton Berry, the 21-year-old actor, singer, director and former American Idol semifinalist, has dreamed of doing The Rocky Horror Show. Literally.

One night several months ago, The Music Box Theater company member had a dream that he was onstage in the middle of doing MBT’s current show Damaged Divas of the Decades, when he suddenly couldn’t remember his lines. For dream Colton, it only made sense to begin singing songs from The Rocky Horror Show.

The next evening, Berry went to work and told fellow company member and MBT’s co-owner, Rebekah Dahl that he thought they must do a special Rocky Horror Show for Halloween. Dahl didn’t have to mull it over too long before responding “All right. That seems like a good time.”

On Friday and Saturday, Berry’s actual dream becomes a reality as he takes the stage of the Music Box Theater as Riff Raff and serves as the show’s director.

Berry has done some considerable research on the play and might now be Houston’s foremost expert. Those with only a casual knowledge of the film might be surprised to know the cult classic began its life in 1973 as a comedy, horror musical in London’s West End. The play was written by Richard O’Brien, who played Riff Raff in both the original play and the movie.

Berry was particularly interested in the interviews done with Richard O’Brien in the book Rocky Horror: From Concept to Cult and the influence the early British punk movement had on O’Brien. In turn, those influences are further influencing Berry’s interpretation of the play.

“I was just inspired about how the story basically tells the tale of the outsider, the plight of the outsider," Berry says. "I really wanted to emphasize that, but what we went to was more of a modern punk feel. What people consider punk rock today is what our show pushes out there.

"But we also are using R&B references, pop references and rock references, while the costuming and design are all inspired by punk and a little bit of burlesque.”

So how is a West End musical, turned cult film going to fit in the intimate Music Box Theater space? Berry describes his version of Rocky Horror as “in your face” staging, and that doesn’t appear to be just hyperbole, as the actors will be dancing and singing on the bars, tables and perhaps even patrons’ laps in a cabaret-style performance. Approximately 75 percent of the show happens in the audience.

Berry thinks Rocky Horror is an excellent match with Music Box Theater. “What we do here on a normal basis is cabaret style theater and the script of Rocky Horror and the feel of it is also cabaret," he says. "It’s a musical, don’t get me wrong, but it’s got that relaxed [feel] with no wall between the audience and actors, and I think it’s the perfect fit for what we do here.

"Obviously it’s very risque and racy in comparison with what we [usually] do but it’s still within the same vibe with the kind of art that we produce.”

In fact, there will only be 30 minutes separating the show Damaged Divas and Rocky Horror, as Divas will go on as usual at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Divas, which I found to be funny and surprisingly touching, is a kind of comic, cabaret meditation on what it means to be a diva and how easily they become damaged once fame finds them.

The company will perform Divas and then have a half hour to clear the house and set the stage for Rocky at 10:30 p.m.. This might seem to be quite the clash of shows, but after two fun hours focusing on the antics of Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Pavarotti, Judy Garland, William Shatner and Ozzy Osbourne, moving on to Dr. Frank-N-Furter and a play that Berry describes as essentially “about aliens who come down to Earth to study sexual habits of humans, who happen to all be transvestites” really isn’t that much of a thematic jump.

In Divas, Berry does several musical and comic bits, including a hilariously frantic Liza, complete with an outrageous dance number. He and fellow company member Cay Taylor, who does a wonderfully self-absorbed yet Zen-like Streisand in the show, will only have very few minutes to change personas to become Riff Raff and Janet, respectively.

The rest of Rocky’s all-Houstonian cast includes some well-known and up-and-coming actors like Tye Blue as Frank, Ernie Manouse as the narrator and Andy Ingalls as Brad.

As Berry speaks with great enthusiasm about the show and directing in general — something he’s been pursuing since he was 15 — he bares no hint of cynicism that one might think a reality show veteran should possess, even one who was pulled from his native Virginia into the American Idol spotlight at the wizened age of 17.

Instead when I asked Berry about his brush with reality show fame, he says “I learned so much and met incredible people with knowledge I couldn’t even hold onto at that point, it was just so much. I took away from it more than just being on television and getting exposure. It was a growth thing for me. I’m glad it happened and because of it I’m here.

"Everything happens for a reason, so it clearly needed to happen, so I accepted it and then went on with my life.”

Perhaps those life lessons are why Berry feels that despite the sex, aliens and punk rock insanity of Rocky, “At the end of the day the whole message is: Don’t dream, it be it. Be who you are.”

Though in Colton Berry’s case, it’s only from dreaming it that the reanimated monster that is a live Houston Rocky Horror came to be.