Cynthia Meier and Joe McGrath had a very clear vision when they launched Rogue Theatre in 2005: To stage works that were being overlooked in Tucsonβs theater space.
They wanted to bring great literature and classic works to life, but there werenβt a lot of opportunities in Tucsonβs theater community to βclimb the big mountains,β McGrath said.
βSo we decided to start staging great plays and great literature and see if there was an audience out here for that,β he said recently as he and Meier were in the midst of rehearsing the first production of their 20th anniversary season. βIt turns out that there is given the fact that weβre still cruising around here 20 years down the road.β
Rogue Theatre opens its 20th season on Friday, Sept. 6, with one of those great works, Thornton Wilderβs Pulitzer Prize-winning play βThe Skin of Our Teeth.β Performances at its theater, 300 E. University Blvd. in downtownβs Historic Y, run through Sept. 29.
The season includes five plays through next spring, when they will present Shakespeareβs βRomeo and Juliet.β
In its infancy, Rogue Theatre was an itinerant company with no place to call home. They split their time at Zuzi Dance Theatre when it was at the Historic Y and the Temple of Music & Artβs 60-seat Cabaret Theatre. In 2006, they did Wallace Shawnβs βThe Feverβ at Hotel Congress.
βFor four years, we were moving around, butβ¦ we eventually found out that audiences, when you say you are with the Rogue Theatre, the very first thing they ask is where is that,β McGrath said. βIf you donβt have a home, you canβt place yourself in the audienceβs mind and build an audience of any size and consistency.β
In their fourth season, the company moved into the 160-seat space that was home in the 1950s to the late Mary MacMurtrieβs Tucson Childrenβs Theatre.
βAlmost immediately, they kind of rose to the top especially after they got their own space,β said Kathleen Allen, the longtime Arizona Daily Star theater critic who continues to do reviews in retirement. βThey became one of the top theaters in Tucson.β
Every year, the company staged a work by Shakespeare β in theater, all roads lead back to the Bard β and mounted plays by great American playwrights from Eugene OβNeill to Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and George Bernard Shaw.
They also wanted to bring great literature to life on their stage with play adaptations of novels.
βNot only are we talking about wanting to do really great literature in terms of dramatic literature but also in terms of prose, of writers we feel deserve to be heard,β said Meier, who did her first adaption in their inaugural 2005-06 season of James Joyceβs short story βThe Dead.β βGreat literature shouldnβt just be read but should be heard and lived.β
To date, the Rogue has commissioned or done the first performances of 14 adaptations. In November, they will do their 15th, John Capecciβs adaptation of Italo Calvinoβs novel βIf on a winterβs night a traveler;β Capecci will be in Tucson to lead a free discussion of the play on Oct. 26.
Their 20th anniversary season also includes John Millington Syngeβs βThe Playboy of the Western Worldβ Jan. 10-Feb. 2, 2025; and Jordan Harrisonβs βMarjorie Prime,β Feb. 21-March 16.
Meier said the company has kept an ensemble of a dozen actors who get three roles a season. She and McGrath also act and direct.
Allen said one of the things that also sets Rogue Theatre apart from other companies in Tucson is its large-cast productions, made possible by a loyal funding base of dedicated followers.
βThey do really challenging work that none of the other theaters did including (Arizona Theatre Company),β she said. βSometimes it falls flat on its face, but you canβt fault a theater for falling flat on its face for doing something courageous. And I think the Rogue is always doings something courageous.β