Kenny Starling founded a drag troupe and theater company in a blue-collar southwestern Wyoming town. Allison Berg wanted to produce a documentary following residents of a conservative state as they performed a gender-bending 1970s cult musical.
The result is “Time Warp,” a film about a Rock Springs drag troupe, which won special jury mention for best documentary at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival. Directed by Allison Berg, the film follows the members of The Starling Company as they prepare for their first show: a shadow cast of “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Founding a theater company, preparing for the show and producing the documentary were long processes, but they yielded a unique glimpse into queer joy in one of the least populated states, those involved in the film say.
Starling Company
Kenny Starling, a 29-year-old resident of Rock Springs, founded The Starling Company in 2022. Starling, who uses they/them pronouns, wanted to create more opportunities for themself while also amplifying marginalized voices and stories that might not otherwise be heard.
Starling managed the Broadway Theater in Rock Springs and served as its events coordinator. They joined the board of a local theater company, but didn’t connect with the work being done there. Around the same time, Starling met a friend who was also involved in local theater. She was from one of the two black families in town and talked about discrimination that she’d faced in the theater community, especially in college. These experiences spurred Starling to create their own drag and theater company.
At the time, Rock Springs didn’t have any specific Pride organizations, though the town had a group called Drag for A Cause. For The Starling Company’s first show, they showed Rocky Horror while performing as a shadow cast: when a group of artists act out the movie as it plays. The troupe selected Rocky Horror due to its members’ passion for the 1975 cult musical, and its accessibility to a wide audience, said Starling, who plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter and directs the show. Rocky Horror explores gender, cross dressing and sexuality, with many characters expressing themselves outside the bounds of societal gender expectations.
“I saw it as a way to bridge cultural and generational divides really early on. And that has been reinforced by every single production that I’ve done. I’ve met so many straight people dressed up as the characters from the film, acting out scenes right along with the actors, doing the callbacks,” Starling said.
The performance of Rocky Horror received a lot of community support and was overall well received by the Rock Springs community, Starling said. The show was rated for mature audiences and only open to those over 18 unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.
“Overwhelmingly, people take issue with queerness and with people being trans and people being gay, that stems from just not knowing,” Starling said.
“I understand the contents of my show. I know when it’s too adult for children to attend. I know how to prepare my artists for when we are doing all ages shows. And we are not inherently political. We’re not inherently sexualized. We’re just another group of artists trying to share our love of our work with the world and make the world a better place in the process. So don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared. It’s just ignorance and fear. And there’s no reason to let that control you or control us in the process.”
Making the documentary
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022, Berg and others felt like they were “living in a timewarp” as they worried about what other rights might be revoked. (Time Warp is also the name of one of the most popular songs on the Rocky Horror soundtrack.) Berg, a New York-based filmmaker who’s produced documentaries and television shows, had the idea to make a documentary about performing Rocky Horror as a shadow cast in a conservative state. Since this was post-COVID, many live performances had been shut down. Plus, a more conservative state would present extra challenges to performing Rocky Horror, Berg said. In the first years after the pandemic, many state legislatures began passing new laws aimed at curtailing transgender rights and library books that lawmakers asserted were inappropriate for children.
Berg found a list of planned performances on a fan website, but none of them were the right fit. Then she discovered The Starling Company production. Berg messaged Starling on Instagram, but Starling initially thought it was a scam. After a video call confirmed Berg was real, Starling agreed to do the documentary. Berg sent Wyoming filmmaker Melinda Binks to Rock Springs to scout the show. Binks did the first couple of shoots and sent the footage to Berg.
Berg, along with cinematographers, spent the next two and a half years filming and then another two years editing in order to complete “Time Warp.” The film was screened at film festivals and in Rock Springs in 2026, with more screenings planned for the future.
“I feel so energized to get involved and to go and see these groups performing and support the LGBTQ+ community even more. And I think that’s sort of what you want out of the film. You want people to find each other at these screenings,” Berg said.
Queer joy in rural Wyoming
Starling defines queer joy as “unbridled joy while you’re authentically being yourself. And it stems from a place of love for yourself and for other people, for just being themselves.”
“Time Warp” is a joyful film. While it doesn’t shy away from representing the realities of being queer in Rock Springs, both good and bad, the film leaves viewers with a message of hope. From the opening scenes of the town and Starling to the final look at The Starling Company performing “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the film portrays an undeniable sense of belonging and acceptance. Throughout the documentary, the film reiterates that queer people live in even the more remote corners of Wyoming.
Midway through one of the productions of Rocky Horror, the movie freezes up. Starling asks the audience to repeat the iconic line from the film, “Don’t dream it, be it,” 10 times to unfreeze the tech. It works.
“That’s kind of been my life motto ever since [seeing the movie Rocky Horror], is not to just dream and fantasize and want the change you wish to see in the world, but to be the change, to be the example, and to make the world a better place,” Starling said.
“I think that anyone could watch this film,” Berg said. “We always wanted people to feel the joy, the queer joy in the room.”
Once audiences experience that joy, Berg said, “if you watch it, you’ll want to be in that room, whether you are queer yourself or not, like you will see the joy and want to be part of it. And that’s what we were trying to accomplish.”
