Nice and Busy

“He’s such a positive person,” says frequent collaborator, actor-singer Jody Briskey. “He has such a joy about him. Everybody wants to work with him. It’s not always financially such a great move, but there are other benefits. He gives you the right tools to do your work and he makes you feel good about what you do. He makes you feel safe.”

Peter Rothstein grew up in Grand Rapids, the youngest of eleven children. “Hence, my ‘I want it all’ attitude,” he says. “[A large family] is also part of my success as a director, because I’ve learned to pay attention to a lot of different psychologies in the room.”

His was a strong Irish–Catholic family and religion remains a large part of his life. “To this day, family celebrations, even birthdays, often involve a Mass. We had a family creed from Micah: ‘Act justly, love tenderly, walk humbly with your God.’ Simple, but not easy,” he says.

He attended St. John’s University, where his faith only deepened. “I figured out how life and work can coexist,” he says. “I learned about perspective.” He is still quite connected to his alma mater, having been invited back to teach and to direct the world premiere of a Stephen Paulus opera on campus.

Currently, he is an active member of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in south Minneapolis. “Being at church once a week connects me to a broader world and prevents me from taking myself too seriously,” he says. “It’s easy for an artist to feel self-important. This grounds me.”

Rothstein remains a devoted son and is close to his family. After completing an internship at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 1989 and earning a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin—Madison in 1992, he contemplated relocating to Chicago. But his father became ill, and Rothstein returned to Minnesota. (His father died four months later.) His mother still lives in Grand Rapids, and despite being eighty-four, she never misses an opening night.

Rothstein’s ascent as an actor and director into the first rank of Twin Cities theaters comes after fifteen years of experience. He established himself as an actor at theaters such as The Jungle, Park Square, and Illusion Theater. Michael Robins, executive producing director of Illusion, asked what Rothstein wanted to do as a director, and he had no answer. “This was a pivotal moment,” Rothstein says. “It was like a slap across the head and shifted my focus back to directing and to finding my own voice.”

According to Robins, “Peter thought of himself as an interpreter. At Illusion, he came to realize that he could generate his own ideas and create new material. He learned to live and thrive in that.”

Rothstein became an artistic associate at Illusion and went on to direct at many Twin Cities theaters. He also spent five seasons working for the Minnesota Opera, assistant directing main-stage productions. He has remounted the popular Turandot production all over the country.

The process of finding his voice led to Theater Latté Da, the theater company he runs in addition to all his freelance work. From humble beginnings at the Bryant–Lake Bowl, Theater Latté Da graduated to the Loring Playhouse, where it has just begun its tenth season of classic musicals, opera, and more experimental works.

As a director, Rothstein believes in the need for a strong central authority, but also recognizes the value of collaboration. He organized Theater Latté Da to tap into his fellow artists’ collective intelligence. “He definitely has his ideas, his own vision,” says Latté Da codirector Denise Prosek. “But he figures things out by talking to people. He is willing to take ideas from everywhere. That doesn’t change his vision, but expands it and makes it better.”

“I went to grad school in the era of deconstruction, where productions took plays apart and commented on them,” Rothstein says. “But I consider my work ‘reconstruction.’ I let the characters determine the theatrical language. For instance, the starving artists in La Bohème would not be able to employ the services of a symphony orchestra. They would need to make do with street instruments, as they do in our production.”

“He’s one of [our] smartest directors,” says Todd Petersen. “He has an incredible depth of knowledge. But what I like most is that his brain is connected to his heart.” CTC’s Peter Brosius concurs. “Peter is inventive and original. His work with actors is clear and clean and engaged. He has a deep understanding of music and the way it plays into theater. But he is always able to find the heart of the piece, which isn’t an insubstantial achievement.”