Rogue Machine Theatre (RMT) is a Los Angeles based theatre company dedicated to the production of new plays and plays new to Los Angeles. They currently run a seven- to eight-month season in the Theatre/Theater building on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. The founding Artistic Director is John Perrin Flynn. Since its foundation in 2008, RMT has won multiple awards, including an Ovation Award for excellence in theatre, LA Weekly Theater Awards and Back Stage Garland Awards. In 2008, Terry Morgan at Variety (magazine) described RMT as "one of the most ambitious and accomplished theatre companies in LA".
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Artistic Outlook
RMT's 'Mission Statement' on their Official Website outlines the company's artistic outlook in the following way:
"Rogue Machine seeks to be a theatre of ideas and a theatre of imagination; a theatre which creates worlds which mirror and examine contemporary culture and current manifestations of conscience and consciousness. Ours will be a theatre that will be theatrical, complex and ambiguous, and absent of ideology. We will nurture new works and introduce works new to Los Angeles. We will engage the community with art that creates a dialogue and resonates with the audience after the curtain closes."
Programming
Rogue Machine Theatre’s season typically includes five to six full productions in the two theatre spaces at 1089 N Oxford Ave. Plays run in repertory, two at a time, with alternating matinee and evening performances on the weekend and an additional Monday night performance for one of the shows. RMT also hosts a typically sold-out venue called Rant And Rave on the third Monday of the month in which seven writers are given ten minutes to speak on a previously designated topic. Additional yearly programming includes, Shorts and Sweets, an evening of short plays accompanied by home-baked deserts, Around-The-Clock, an evening of short plays conceived, written, directed and produced in a single twenty-four-hour period, and The Late Night Series, a venue for edgier, riskier, more controversial work.
History
In 2008, Rogue Machine Theatre was formed as a not-for-profit and presented its first season, including Jeffrey Hatcher’s Compleat Female Stage Beauty, John Pollono’s Razorback and Brett Neveu’s American Dead.
Season Two (2009) included Adam Rapp’s Bingo With The Indians, Henry Murray’s Treefall, Stop Kiss by Diana Son, Half Of Plenty by Lisa Dillman and Phyllis Nagy’s Never Land.
In 2010, Season Three included Four Places by Joel Drake Johnson, The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy, Yard Sale Signs by Jennie Webb, Steven Slater’s New York Animals and Milk Milk Lemonade by Joshua Conkel.
Season Four (2011) featured Small Engine Repair by John Pollono, Blackbird by David Harrower, The Word Begins by Sekou Andrews and Steve Connell, Vivien by Rick Foster and Monkey Adored by Henry Murray (playwright).
In 2012, Rogue Machine presented including Where the Great Ones Run by Mark Roberts, New Electric Ballroom by Enda Walsh, A Bright New Boise by Sam Hunter, and Three Views of the Same Object by Henry Murray, winner of the 2011-12 Woodward Newman Award and the Holland New Voices Award.
Rogue Machine's sixth season opened with Christopher Shinn's "Dying City", directed by Michael Peretzian, playing until the end of June. Opening June 8 2013 was Kemp Powers' debut play, "One Night in Miami", directed by Carl Cofield which subsequently wet on to have its European premiere at the Donmar Warehouse in London's westend 6 October to 3 December 2016. "Lost Girls" by John Pollono and "Falling" by Deanna Jent followed.
Awards and Accolades
One Night in Miami (2013) won three LA Drama Critics Circle Awards, four NAACP Theatre Awards (best playwright, best director, best ensemble cast, best producer) and LA Weekly Theater Awards for playwriting and direction.
Ovation Awards
New Play Development
Rogue Machine Theatre’s new play program began as a rehearsed reading series called Rogue’s Gallery of New Plays. Audience feedback sessions were moderated and dramaturgical notes were given to promising scripts. The development process has evolved to a multi-stepped playwright-focused series of events beginning with a dramaturg led roundtable with four writers discussing of early drafts of their new plays. Subsequent steps include readings, discussions, workshops and a late night workshop production, leading to the goal of a fully produced new play. Since 2008 Rogue Machine Theatre has produced 6 World Premieres, 1 American Premiere, 8 West Coast Premieres, and 3 Los Angeles Premieres. Playwrights in Residence include Jennie Webb, John Pollono, Mark Roberts, and Henry Murray.