Welcome to Rogue Theater Company’s (RTC) fifth season. RTC’s accomplishments in 2023 included doubling the number of performances with many sold-out shows and adding new stage lights and a state-of-the-art sound system. RTC inaugurated “Tuesday Talks,” providing donors a more intimate forum to engage with actors and artists while fostering cultural enrichment and a creative community. We instituted an education department headed by actor and director Tyrone Wilson and began offering complimentary theater tickets to local high school and college students and educators. This year we will be adding a preface led by Tyrone and theater educator and RTC team member Kathleen Woods before each student matinee.
I am thrilled with this season, starting with Off Peak, written by Brenda Withers, featuring Robin Goodrin Nordli and Michael Elich, and directed by Robynn Rodriguez. Off Peak centers on two old lovers who bump into each other on the evening commuter train, only to have different views of their shared past threaten to derail their connection.
From May 2–5, we will present a play reading of August: Osage County. Written by Tracy Letts and directed by former Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Henry Woronicz, August: Osage County takes a look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to their Oklahoma homestead. The thirteen-member cast includes Linda Alper, Kjerstine Anderson, Denis Arndt, Wayne Carr, Rainbow Dickerson, Michael Elich, Michael J. Hume, Samantha Miller, Barret O’Brien, James Ryen, Caroline Shaffer, Vilma Silva, and K.T. Vogt.
From July 17–August 4, Dan Donohue and Ray Porter portray extras on a Hollywood film set in rural Ireland in Stones in His Pockets. In the course of this play, written by Marie Jones and directed by John Plumpis, Donohue and Porter also portray thirteen other characters in a hilarious clash of cultures that pits gritty reality against Hollywood endings.
On September 14 and 15, Shakespeare scholar and actor Barry Kraft will lead sessions on Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing. The event will be held at a private home in Ashland, and attendees can participate in these sessions in person or via Zoom or receive them as videos. Each day will cover new material about both plays.
Rounding out our season, from October 23–November 10, RTC will present Gidion’s Knot, written by Johnna Adams, featuring Domenique Lozano and Erica Sullivan, and directed by Terri McMahon. Gidion’s Knot explores a mother and a teacher’s experience of coping with unimaginable sorrow and discovers the truthbehind their shared grief.
Thank you for joining us on this splendid journey.
Lights up!
Jessica Sage, Artistic Director, Rogue Theater Company
----------------------------------------------------------------
My father was a lifelong commuter. When my sister and I started working with our dad in his drugstore, we became commuters, too. On a good day, the trip would take forty minutes. If something went amiss, the daily up and back became maddening and interminable; a kind of Twilight Zone purgatory that could only be escaped if traffic began moving again.
At times while stuck in our car the difficulties of being a father to teenagers got addressed. The discussions could be quite challenging because relationships are. Quite often apologies were given and forgiveness was sought while we covered a long distance at a high rate of speed. Regardless of the ebb and flow, in the end we always moved forward—at times, in spite of ourselves.
As she prepared to write Off Peak, Brenda Withers was pondering the polarizing times in which we live. She was thinking about apologies and the reluctance to accept them. She wanted to challenge herself to write something straightforward and yet vulnerable. She also said, “I really love trains.” She set Off Peak on the Hudson River North Metro Line from Grand Central Station to Poughkeepsie. The commute takes one hour and fifty-four minutes, if all goes well. In the play, it does not. Off Peak is about a commute and a reunion. It is about, “forgiving, forgetting and the healing power of a good delay.”
Robynn Rodriguez, Director, Off Peak
