Peter Rothstein

Peter works extensively as a director of theater, musical theater, opera and new work development. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Theater Latté Da, a Twin Cities-based company dedicated to adventurous music-theater. Since the company’s inception in 1992, Peter has directed 82 main-stage productions, including 13 world premieres and 13 area premieres. In 2012 the company launched NEXT, a major new works initiative for the development of new music-theater.

Directing highlights include Other Desert Cities, M. Butterfly and Private Lives for the Guthrie Theater, record-breaking productions of Annie, The Wizard of Oz, and the world premiere of Disney’s High School Musical for the Children’s Theatre Company; Cosi fan tutte for the Minnesota Opera; Doubt, Once on this Island and Miss Julie for Ten Thousand Things; Guys and Dolls and Oklahoma! for Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre; and award-winning productions of Spring Awakening, La Bohème, Old Wicked Songs and Violet for Theater Latté Da.

Peter frequently directs workshops of new plays, musicals and operas with Theater Latté Da, the Playwrights’ Center, Philadelphia’s PlayPenn and the Illusion Theatre, where he is an artistic associate.

He is the creator of All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, which premiered in a live broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio and has since been broadcast around the globe. In 2018, All is Calm received its Off-Broadway debut at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, for which it won a 2019 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. This original docu-musical had its world premiere in a live broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio in 2007. Since that time, the show has enjoyed global success reaching more than 50 cities playing prestigious venues such as The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Cal Performances (Berkeley, CA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). The show has toured 11 season across North America and has been licensed and performed by theater companies and choruses across the US and Canada. Peter is also the creator of Steerage Song along with musician and storyteller Dan Chouinard. Steerage Song is a new musical about the European American immigrant experience between 1845 and 1924 seen through the lens of the current immigration debate. The work includes songs from 25 countries and is performed in 18 different languages.

Peter has been named one of Minnesota’s Artists of the Year by the Star Tribune (2001, 2007, 2011), Theater Artist of the Year (2010) by Lavender Magazine, Best Director of the Year (2006, 2010) by City Pages and Artist of the Year by City Pages(2012). He has received nine Ivey Awards for Overall Excellence, and has been awarded grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Theater Communications Group, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation.

Peter has served on the board of directors for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Alive and Kickin’ and the Twin Cities’ Ivey Awards. He also served on the steering committee for the creation of the Minnesota Theater Alliance. He has been as a panelist and evaluator for the Playwrights’ Center, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals.

Peter has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Theater from St. John’s University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing from University of Wisconsin – Madison.