EVANSTON SALT COSTS CLIMBING Comes to Rogue Machine

Winters keep getting worse in Evanston, IL where salt truck drivers Peter and Basil battle the ice and snow and pass the time with jokes and stories. But what’s with this creeping sense of dread? Is it because their boss Maiworm has noble visions of new green technology that would make their jobs obsolete? Or is there a more terrifying warning calling out from under these roads? At least they have each other, right?

Pulitzer Prize finalist Will Arbery confronts humanity’s darkest fears with humor, warmth, and the fortitude of municipal public servants in this play about climate and change.

Will Arbery (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His plays include Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Corsicana, Plano, You Hateful Things, and Wheelchair. Awards include a Whiting, Obie, Lucille Lortel, and New York Drama Critics’ Circle. Will is currently under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club, Adventureland, and The Metropolitan Opera. He was a writer and producer on Succession and Irma Vep (HBO). His film Sacrifice (dir. Romain Gavras) began filming in November 2024, starring Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Salma Hayek, and John Malkovich. His plays are published by TCG Books and Concord Theatricals.

“I don’t think any play I’ve worked on in recent years has hit me on a personal level more than this one - which is a surprise,” admits director Guillermo Cienfuegos. “It’s so funny and absurd and unusual that a first reading doesn’t necessarily reveal how deeply the themes of the play go. Amidst the quirkiness and laughs there is an undercurrent of anxiety and existential dread that all the characters come in contact with and must ultimately face. And which I can personally relate to.”

Guillermo Cienfuegos (Director) serves as artistic director at Rogue Machine where he has helmed productions of Juan José Alfonso’s Middle of the World, Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Tim Venable’s The Beautiful People, Neil McGowan’s Disposable Necessities, David Jacobi’s Ready Steady Yeti Go and Greg Keller’s Dutch Masters, as well as the RMT video productions of Andrei Kureichik's Insulted: Belarus(sia) and Voices of the New Belarus. Cienfuegos won 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, Middle of the World at Boise Contemporary Theatre, Christmas Contigo at Oregon Cabaret Theatre, the Los Angeles Premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize Winner Between Riverside and Crazy at The Fountain Theatre and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at A Noise Within. 

Justin Okin (Producer) serves as the executive director of Rogue Machine Theatre, where he has produced On the Other Hand, We’re Happy (LADCC award for Outstanding Production) and Heroes of the Fourth Turning (LA Times' "Best Theater of 2023"). At Rogue Machine, Justin has appeared in Stop Kiss, MilkMilkLemonade, Monkey Adored and Pocatello. He has served on the Board of Directors at Theatre of NOTE, where he performed in Entropy and Eat the Runt. At The Road Theatre Company, Justin co-produced four seasons of the Summer Playwrights Festival and performed in At the Table. Additionally, he associate-produced Tiny Little Town and performed in Hot Cat with Theatre Movement. Other acting credits include appearances at Center Theatre Group, Lincoln Center’s Directors Lab, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and The Public. He is the founder of Rogue Machine's Playwright's Roundtable which focuses on developing new works by some of theatre’s most creative new voices.

CAST: Hugo Armstrong as Basil (Alan Raleigh/Michael Novak in God of Carnage - Mark Taper Forum, John Broads Watson in The Behavior of Broads and Sabertooth in Land of the Tigers - Sacred Fools Theater, Émile in Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie - Geffen Playhouse, Craig Venter in The Sequence, the Cook in Mother Courage and Her Children, and Dan in Cold/Tender - Theatre@Boston Court. FILM: Coherence, Lay the Favorite, Weak Species); Lesley Fera as Maiworm (Pacific Resident Theatre roles include Ruth in The Homecoming, Sister Margaret in The Hasty Heart, Lillian in Happy End, Olympia in Big Love, and the title role in Anna Christie, and in Lady Chatterley's Lover. TV roles include Veronica Hastings on the television series Pretty Little Liars. Lesley is a Black List Recommended Writer (on the Top Ten list) for her latest project, an action feature, 20 Flights); Kaia Gerber as Jane Jr. (Apple TV+ series Palm Royale with Laura Dern, Carol Burnett, Allison Janney - Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series. FILM: Co-starred in MGM’s Orion Pictures Bottoms, a high school sex comedy - nominated for Best Comedy at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards, upcoming co-starring role in Saturday Night - Sony Pictures, and the psychological thriller Shell, starring alongside Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson. She appeared in the 2022 indie short Palisades and starred in Season 10 of Ryan Murphy’s Double Feature – American Horror Story and American Horror Stories “two horrifying stories....one season” alongside franchise veterans Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Billie Lourd, Liya Rabe, and Macaulay Culkin. As an avid book reader, Gerber recently launched her online literature platform called Library Science); Michael Redfield as Peter (a founding member of Rogue Machine and 20-year member of Pacific Resident Theatre, appears regularly at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble. Michael starred in John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair, which swept every major L.A. theatre award, with critics noting that "Michael Redfield walks off with the evening ... there's no end of joy in his hapless bumbling yet irrepressible love of life" – Variety. He was featured in Rogue Machine's Oppenheimer and nominated for “Best Featured Performer” for his role in Daisy Foote’s When They Speak of Rita at Pacific Resident Theatre. Additional selected credits locally include Small Tragedy - Ovation nominee “Best Ensemble,” My Antonia at the Rubicon Theatre - LA Weekly nominee “Best Production.” FILM/TV credits include Hannah Montana, Chasing Home, and the film adaptation of Small Engine Repair - Official Selection, SXSW Film Festival); Paige Simunovich understudy for Jane Jr. (Liesel in H*tler’s Tasters at Rogue Machine. Broadway: Finian’s Rainbow. National Tour: Mary Poppins, 101 Dalmatians, The Wizard of Oz).

Production Team: Mark Mendelson (Scenic Design), Dan Weingarten (Lighting Design), Chris Moscatiello (Sound Design), Christine Cover Ferro (Costume Design), Jenine Mac Donald (Prop Design), Michelle Hanzelova-Bierbauer (Projection Design), Victoria Hoffman (Casting), Myrna Gawryn (Movement Director/Intimacy Coordinator), Rachel Ann Manheimer (Stage Manager), Grant Gerrard (Technical Director).

Rogue Machine is the only company to receive the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Polly Warfield Award for “Best Season” three times (2023, 2016, 2011). Additionally, they won the Ovation Award for “Best Season” (2017). Rogue Machine produces new plays, primarily by Los Angeles based playwrights, and important contemporary plays not yet seen in Los Angeles. Nine of their productions have been published by Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service or Broadway Play Publishing, and six of the productions have had subsequent staging’s at significant theatres, including Off Broadway, major regional houses and The Donmar Warehouse in London. Four world premieres, Razorback, Small Engine Repair, Lone-Anon, and One Night in Miami… were made into feature films, and playwright Kemp Powers was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of “Best Adapted Screenplay.” In recognition of its artistic achievement, administrative strength, development of new work and other significant contributions to the field of professional theatre in the United States, Rogue Machine is supported by the Perenchio Foundation, Shubert Foundation, Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, David Lee Foundation, the City and County of Los Angeles, The Ahmanson Foundation, and the Richenthal Foundation. Rogue Machine is a recipient of the American Theatre Wing’s National Theatre Company Grant.  

To post a comment, you must register and login.