Nice and Busy

Though most of Rothstein’s work has been local, he is beginning to garner national attention as well. He was recently one of seven awarded participation in Theater Communications Group and The National Endowment for the Arts, enabling him to work with theaters around the country that are doing what Latté Da wants to do: develop more new multidisciplinary works. “I want Latté Da to become part of the national dialogue on the creation of new work,” he says. “I sometimes get frustrated living in Minnesota that things can become insular. I long for a broader dialogue with people who do what I do.”

At the same time, Minnesota remains Rothstein’s home base. “I can’t see myself leaving the Twin Cities,” he says. “I can’t see myself leaving my condo! I’d love to work other places, but I am committed to this community that has been so good to me. Besides, I have seven siblings here. It would be difficult to leave.” Nevertheless, he continues to expand his horizons, even locally.

This season, Theater Latté Da is abandoning its comfortable digs at the Loring Playhouse in search of larger audiences. La Bohème will be remounted at the Southern Theatre and Christmas Carole Petersen will move into the McKnight Theatre at the Ordway. “Both pieces will be well served by the larger spaces,” he says. The intimacy of the Bohème production will remain a value, he insists, but “it will sound better in the larger acoustic. And Christmas Carole Petersen is a comedy. The larger audience means more laughs!”

Rothstein continues his commitment to new work with All is Calm, a recreation of the true story of a spontaneous Christmas truce between troops in the trenches during World War I. The piece will premiere as a live broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio December 21, so Rothstein’s directorial duties include figuring out “how the piece is built, the audio world, how text and music interact.”

“Peter has a very bright future,” says the Guthrie’s Joe Dowling, who intends to hire him to work on future Guthrie productions and thinks Rothstein may have an even more luminous future. “I could see him as the director of a major national company,” he says. “He has that capacity.”

Despite the accolades and the success he is currently enjoying, Rothstein is humble about his accomplishments. “I am very lucky and I work very hard,” he says. “I was not born with an extraordinary amount of talent, but I was given passion. That’s what carries me on to the next level. It’s passion, not talent.”