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By Marshall Bissett
Honor Among Rogues
At Rogue Artists Ensemble everyone brings ideas—and
better be prepared to let them go
The Rogue Artists
Ensemble, as their
name suggests, do
not play by the rules. Many
theatre companies will find
a script, rehearse for six
weeks, bring in technical
crew at the last minute
and open whether they
are ready or not. Take that
process, extend it by about
three years, get the input
of 15 designers and you
will get a feel for how the
Rogues create what they
call “Hyper Theatre.”
A production concept
and many of the group’s
trademark visual effects
precede the script by as
much as a year. In a tradition
that owes a lot to
Brecht, Peter Brook and
Kabuki theatre, the story
is carried forward using as
many stage techniques as
the design team considers
appropriate. While masks
and puppets have been
around as long as theatre
itself, in the Rogue’s “Hyper
Theatre” they’re combined
with an injection of modern
technology to create enormous
production value.
Their current production—Gogol
Project—is
based on three of acclaimed
19th-century Russian writer
Nikolai Gogol’s short
stories, adapted by playwright
and NPR radio host
Kitty Felde. The script is
an amalgam of Diary of a
Madman, The Overcoat and
The Nose.
Process
If you are wondering
how 15 designers can
agree on anything, Artistic
Director Sean Cawelti says
he has never had too much
Puppet designers Elizabeth Luce and Brian White with “The Very Old Clerk” puppet
“We make it clear from the outset
that everything can and will
change and that we welcome
input in every area—nothing is
sacrosanct.” —Sean Cawelti
Rogue Artistic Director Sean Cawelti (left) and actors with rehearsal puppets
All Photography by Marshall Bissett
of a problem with it.
“Each member creates
a small sacred list of ideas
and the group allows these
to bubble up to the surface,”
explains Cawelti. “It
works very well—I very
rarely have to adjudicate.”
Collaboration is at the
heart of Rogue Theatre
thinking.
“We did not start the
company just to put actors
on stage,” says Cawelti.
“We are designers, storytellers
and artists that
want to create work that
will engage an audience.
The core group met at UC
Irvine between 2000-2003
and pushed the limits of
what typical student production
could do. We have
production meetings at
least once a month and
constant cyber meetings
for about two years before
we open a show. We bump
into each other and ideas
happen.”
For this production the
group brought their “show
bible” of artwork and visual
research to the author Kitty
Felde who blended three
Gogol short stories into
one. In the Rogue world,
this script became one of
many changeable elements
that serve the theatrical
experience. Knowing how
this approach could induce
hysteria in playwrights,
Cawelti says, “We make it
clear from the outset that
everything can and will
change and that we welcome
input in every area—
nothing is sacrosanct.”
Cawelti and Assistant
Director Tyler Stamets
refer to the company as an
ensemble and the antith-
30 October 2009 • www.stage-directions.com