Click here to listen to Cynthia Meier and Joseph McGrath, co-founders of The Rogue Theatre, as they reflect on why we chose the plays we did and why we’re excited to share them with you.

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Celia, A Slave
by Barbara Seyda
Directed by Cynthia Meier
Production sponsors: Pat & John Hemann

September 7–24, 2017

Winner of the prestigious 2015 Yale Drama Series playwriting competition. Based on court records of an 1855 case of the killing of a slaveholder by one of his slaves whom he had repeatedly raped over the course of years. An unflinching confrontation with an American original sin.

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Bach at Leipzig
by Itamar Moses
Directed by Cynthia Meier
Production sponsors: John Wahl & Mary Lou Forier

November 2–19, 2017

A comic imagining, in the vein of Stoppard, of 18th Century rivals gathering to compete for the position of Leipzig's Thomaskantor. Politics, religion, and fragile egos collide in a desperate competition before their hopes are dashed by the history trumpeted in the title of the play.

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The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck, adapted by Frank Galati
Directed by Joseph McGrath
Production sponsors: Judith & Ward Wallingford

January 11–28, 2018

The iconic novel of the twin hardships of the American dustbowl and the Great Depression. A farming family of self-reliance and determination abandons their land and way of life to find work and survival to the west as they join America's own refugee crisis of the 30s.

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Three Tall Women
by Edward Albee
Directed by Christopher Johnson
Production sponsors: Barbara Martinsons & Larry Boutis

March 8–25, 2018

In a unique conceit, Albee posits a dialogue between a woman at the end of life and two versions of her younger self. The different ages of one's life, it seems, don't always see eye to eye, and a life's reflections are viewed from distinctly different and differing vantage points.

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King Lear
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Cynthia Meier
Production sponsors: Andy & Cammie Watson

April 26–May 13, 2018

A great secular myth of western culture. An aging monarch unwisely chooses to divest himself of his responsibilities and divide his kingdom among his three daughters, naively desiring to retain the perquisites of royalty. A warfare of generations, the play is rich with character and subplot. Perhaps the grandest of the four great mid-career tragedies of Shakespeare.

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