Los Angeles, CA (September 6, 2024) – With great admiration and bittersweet sentiment, Rogue Machine Theatre announces the retirement of Co-Founding Producing Artistic Director, John Perrin Flynn. After sixteen seasons of innovative leadership and outstanding artistic guidance, John will be stepping down from his leadership role as this season draws to an end during September 2024 however, he will continue to direct various projects for the company. Guillermo Cienfuegos will succeed Flynn as Rogue Machine’s artistic director.
Rogue Machine was created as a collective of award-winning entertainment veterans bringing a new and distinctive voice to Los Angeles theatre. The company was launched with the production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Compleat Female Stage Beauty, directed by Flynn at the remodeled Theatre Theatre building on Pico Blvd. in April of 2008, with Elina de Santos as co-artistic director. In 2017 the company moved to The Met in East L.A., in 2018 they produced the next two seasons at the Electric Lodge in Venice, and in 2021 moved to their current home in the Matrix Theatre at 7657 Melrose Ave., in Los Angeles.
Photo (Courtesy RMT): John Perrin Flynn
Drawing from the diverse and extensive experience of its collective, while creating high-quality productions by contemporary playwrights, Rogue Machine produces plays that specifically address our culture and time. The mission has always included building a theatre of ideas and nurturing the development of plays from contemporary writers. Flynn set out to keep a strong emphasis on presenting new plays or plays new to Los Angeles. This edict is now nationally recognized as the cornerstone of the Rogue Machine brand.
From its inception, Flynn’s insistence on pushing artistic boundaries has garnered recognition from local and national press, which has elevated Rogue Machine to one of the city’s most awarded intimate theatres, and the only company to receive the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, three times, for “Best Season.”
Highlights of John’s transformative leadership include the development of nine productions published by Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service or Broadway Play Publishing, with six of the productions having subsequent staging’s at significant theatres, including Off Broadway, major regional houses and the Donmar Warehouse in London. Four world premieres, John Pollono’s Razorback and Small Engine Repair, Neil McGowen’s Lone-Anon, and One Night in Miami… by Kemp Powers were made into feature films, garnering Kemp Powers an Academy Award nomination. Flynn has directed the world premieres of John Pollono’s Lost Girls and Henry Murray’s Treefall. Additionally, he helmed Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom, the Los Angeles premiere of Walsh’s Penelope, The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy, Christian St. Croix’s Monsters of the American Cinema, the West Coast premieres of Samuel D. Hunter’s Pocatello, A Permanent Image, A Bright New Boise, Tom Morton-Smith’s American premiere of Oppenheimer, and Rogue Machine’s inaugural production, Compleat Female Stage Beauty by Jeffrey Hatcher. In 2012, John received the Career Achievement Award for Theatre from the LA Weekly.
In recognition of John’s part in Rogue Machine’s artistic achievement, administrative strength, development of new work and other significant contributions to the field of professional theatre in the United States, the company is supported by the Shubert Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, The David Lee Foundation, The City and County of Los Angeles, The Ahmanson Foundation, and The Richenthal Foundation. RMT is a recipient of the American Theatre Wing’s 2014 National Theatre Company Grant. Prior to founding Rogue Machine, John was the executive producer and director of Lifetime’s long-running series Strong Medicine and has produced two other series and 14 television movies or miniseries including the Emmy-nominated Burden of Proof.
Stepping into the role as Rogue Machine’s new artistic director will be multi-award winner Guillermo Cienfuegos, kicking off the seventeenth season in November 2024 by directing the Los Angeles premiere of Will Arbery’s Evanston Salt Costs Climbing. Already familiar to Rogue Machine audiences, Cienfuegos directed the company’s productions of Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Middle of the World, The Beautiful People, Disposable Necessities, Ready Steady Yeti Go, and Dutch Masters as well as the RMT video productions of Insulted:Belarus(sia) and Voices of the New Belarus. He received both the Ovation and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for “Best Director” for his production of Shakespeare’s Henry V at Pacific Resident Theatre. He has directed numerous productions at PRT, including Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, Pinter’s The Homecoming and Safe at Home: An Evening with Orson Bean. Other theatre directing credits include Julia, both at PRT and at New York’s 59E59 theatre, Off-Broadway, the World Premiere of Middle of the World at Boise Contemporary Theatre, Christmas Contigo at Oregon Cabaret Theatre, the Los Angeles Premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize winning Between Riverside and Crazy at the Fountain Theatre and most recently Shaw’s Misalliance and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at A Noise Within. Guillermo Cienfuegos is the directing pseudonym of actor Alex Fernandez, who has appeared at numerous regional theatres, including the American Conservatory Theatre, Alaska Rep, and the Old Globe as well as in dozens of local productions most notably Henry V, The Cherry Orchard and Rhinoceros at PRT, Exiles at the Hayworth and Luka’s Room at Rogue Machine. Fernandez has over 170 film and television credits, most recently recurring on the series American Gigolo, Mayans MC and Good Trouble. Cienfuegos was featured in the ‘People to Watch’ issue of American Theatre magazine and is a graduate of the American Conservatory Theatre.
Cienfuegos expressed that, “Just the mere thought of having to step into the role, that John has held so brilliantly, fills me with terror. Having now done it alongside him for a little while, I can see how much love and dedication he has poured into the work of building Rogue Machine. And how much he has sacrificed to keep it alive and thriving. As artistic director of Rogue Machine for the past 16 years, John has been in the vanguard of producing new work in Los Angeles. Dozens and dozens of new plays, plays new to LA, and their playwrights, have been fostered, developed and shared with audiences hungry for them, because of his efforts. Thanks to him, Rogue Machine has grown into a theatre that plays a significant role in the culture of Los Angeles. John’s legacy is cemented as a champion of new plays and a fervent defender and advocate of intimate theatre. My humble desire is to continue his legacy.”
Rogue Machine is planning to have a “Standing Ovation Party” for John which will take place on December 8, 2024 (5pm-9pm) at the LGBT Center, 1125 N McCadden Pl in Los Angeles, honoring John Perrin Flynn’s retirement, and his achievement in and dedication to Los Angeles theatre. In addition, the company is premiering a fund in his name, dedicated to the purpose of continuing his legacy of developing and nurturing emerging playwrights, and introducing important contemporary works that are new to Los Angeles. More information on ticketing and donations will be available soon on the Rogue Machine website: https://www.
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Playwright Ben Edlin explains, “TH IR DS is an exploration of the ties that bind us together and the forces that pull us apart: of the hope that lies in understanding when our bitterness departs. Of the dangers we may drown in when we all decline to say, ‘I’m not sure I agree, but still, our brotherhood should stay.’ It’s a story of survival and of reaping what we sow: of a question, that if where we are is where we want to go?”
