Nice and Busy

The busiest man in local theater is getting busier. This summer, director Peter Rothstein remounted High School Musical at Children’s Theatre Company (he’d staged the original production in January) and made his Guthrie Theater main-stage debut directing Private Lives. The rehearsal periods overlapped, and for a week he had to travel back and forth between the two theaters four times a day. For Rothstein, this was not unusual. It was just the culmination of an eight-month run of good fortune that had him opening as many as three shows every month.

“I keep a ridiculous schedule, at least twelve hours a day,” Rothstein says. “But for almost a year, there have been only three or four weekends when I haven’t had a show running. That’s fun. Thousands of people see my work—that’s mind boggling.”

“He is in constant motion,” says Denise Prosek, cofounder with Rothstein of Theater Latté Da and its music director. “He thrives on creativity.”

If anything, Rothstein’s schedule has only intensified this autumn. Before the end of the year, he will open Latté Da’s La Bohème, CTC’s A Year with Frog and Toad, Latté Da’s holiday favorite A Christmas Carole Petersen, and All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, a collaboration of Latté Da, Cantus, and Minnesota Public Radio.

How does he maintain such a frenetic pace? “I don’t separate my personal and professional lives,” says Rothstein. “Work is who I am, so I’m always working.”

Rothstein, forty-one, is one of those contagiously energetic people who are propelled by passion for their work. With his cherubic face and sparkling smile, he is completely guileless, and his wide-eyed exuberance when talking about the thrill of working at the Guthrie or Children’s Theatre seems absolutely genuine. Though known for creating cutting-edge musical theater, he is still able to brim with enthusiasm about something as unabashedly commercial as High School Musical. “This show makes musical theater cool for a whole new generation of kids!” he says, almost gushing.

“He is such a kid,” says Todd Petersen, creator and performer of A Christmas Carole Petersen. “He’s a great audience member. I love to perform for Peter. He has such a wonderful laugh.”

Despite the tremendous creative pressure he is under, Rothstein professes not to be bothered by stress, even at the most hectic times. “I am pretty emotionally even,” he says. “For instance, I have never lost my temper at a rehearsal. I am demanding, but patient.”

That attitude has made him almost universally loved in the theater community. “He is a terrific person,” says CTC artistic director Peter Brosius, echoing the sentiments of just about everyone who has worked with him. “We had a great time together, and he worked so well with our staff and all the young actors.”

Guthrie artistic director Joe Dowling joins that chorus. “[On Private Lives] he worked so well with the designer. They created a very special world of Amanda’s Paris apartment. But where he really showed his talent was in the casting of Tracey Mahoney and Chris Nelson. He gives local people opportunity.”