Talent ‘Agency’ Ellsworth production world premere of comedy by Machias playwright Lee rose

A rehearsal earlier this month of “Agency,” a new play with a four-night run this weekend at The Grand Auditorium in Ellsworth, took place in the music room of a local high school near the theater. The actors – a twentysomething crowd – were spirited in miming cups of coffee or speaking into imaginary telephones the script had them answering. Real costumes and real props would come with the real show. But until then, the actors were in street clothes and were pretending that three chairs were a couch and a fourth one was a desk.

The director Tony Cox was poised behind an electronic keyboard giving notes after each scene. Somewhere in another classroom, a Scottish band was practicing with drums and bagpipes.

On the plastic chairs stacked along the side of the music room sat Lee Rose, the playwright, with a computer on his lap. For the last month, Rose has been driving from his home in Washington County, where he is a professor of theater and speech at the University of Maine at Machias, to Ellsworth each week to attend the rehearsals of his new play. He also helped with the casting and has rewritten parts of the second act for the production, which is the world premiere of the work.

“My goal is to have things come across as well as possible,” said Rose, who moved to Maine six years ago to take the job in Machias, where his wife, Jody, teaches in the science department. “I want to develop a comfortable place for an audience to learn a lesson.”

The Roses also wanted to raise their two sons ages 5 and 8 outside of Manhattan, where Rose spent many years working theater jobs both on- and offstage, as actor, techie, crew and director.

A native of Long Island, Lee has a history with theater that precedes his academic years at Union College in New York and California Institute of the Arts, where he earned a master’s in fine arts. His family lived less than a mile from Westbury Music Fair, a well-known stop for Broadway tours, where he saw productions with actors in the early years of their careers – such as Lee Remick in “Annie Get Your Gun” and Richard Chamberlain in “West Side Story.”

“I grew up in that atmosphere,” said Rose, who changed his name from Bloomrosen years ago. “So when I announced I was changing from pre-med to theater, my parents didn’t go nuts. My brother is in theater, too, so I guess it’s in the blood.”

“Agency,” which is a comedy about a playwright with writer’s block, is Rose’s first attempt at a full-length play. He started writing it in the mid-1980s when he was running sound for the original of-Broadway production of Larry Shue’s hit comedy “The Foreigner.”

“I saw the show about 200 times,” said Rose. “It was a lesson in itself about comedy. It doesn’t have to make sense or be logical.” He spoke of mixed-up, illogical plot lines that comedy allows to happen, all in the name of getting a laugh.

Of course, the laugh is not the only goal Rose has when the theater is full. His approach to theater dates back to the ancient philosophy of combining entertainment and education. He wants the impact of his play to be like a song you hear in a musical and then find yourself humming later. “Eventually the lyrics will come back to you,” said Rose, “and then the message will come and perhaps it will be at a moment that can change your life.”

In listing the playwrights he admires – Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Caryl Churchill, Tom Stoppard – Rose exposes himself as an actor’s actor, the kind who likes a role that allows the full range of tricks to be pulled from the bag, as well as the full play of language. “I relate to storytelling,” said Rose. “I start all my classes with, ‘Tell a story.'”

In casting “Agency,” Rose said – and then smirked – that he would have liked to cast Richard Dreyfuss in the staring role. Rose slightly resembles a younger Dreyfuss and, because of that, it’s hard not to guess that the lead role is one he might, indeed, like to play. Instead, actor Anthony Pizzuto plays Neal, a successful writer facing a blank page and an old flame with a checkered past.

Pizzuto, who recently starred in The Grand production of “Grease,” quickly saw that the character is based on the playwright – that guy hanging out in the back of the room.

“It has been really great,” said Pizzuto, who is co-producing the show with Tony Cox through their company Castle Theatre Productions. “I’ve done quite a few shows and all you have of the author is the script. This time around, I have the script and the author sitting right there. You get to hear his perspective of the play as he was writing it.”

Last April, Pizzuto performed in an Ellsworth production of the musical “Babes in Arms,” which Rose directed. During that time, Rose and Pizzuto talked about “Agency.” “I read it a couple of times and thought it was pretty funny,” said Pizzuto, an Ellsworth native and the marketing and educational director at The Grand. “I thought I’d love to see this onstage. And that was it. Plus the fact that it was written by a local author – I thought producing it would be a nice community thing as well.”

For Rose, whose commitment to theater is rivaled only by his commitment to teaching, the production gives him the opportunity to hone a script he hopes will find its way onto stages at other venues.

“I have always really wanted to write,” he said. “I have so much experience with plays but it’s with teaching or performing or the technical side. I’m excited that I get to see it in rehearsal and then see it on its feet.”

Rose paused and through a smile added: “It sure beats working for a living. In what other field is the work called play?”

Alicia Anstead is a Style Desk writer. She can reached at aanstead@bangordailynews.net.