This month we turn the spotlight on Mac Rogers, the author of Universal Robots, opening this week at Manhattan Theatre Source.

Playwright, actor, blogger and cute nerd, Rogers is arguably becoming an Off-Off-Broadway rock star!  Nominated for the Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role award in 2007, Rogers is one of the most Google-able artists working in our community.

Although recognized at the It Awards for his intense and sympathetic performance on stage in Nosedive Productions' The Adventures of Nervous-Boy (A Penny Dreadful), Rogers is probably better known as a playwright and is one of the exciting new voices in the indie theatre scene:  Playscripts, Inc. published his play The Second String, Universal Robots was included in NY Theatre Experience's anthology "Plays and Playwrights 2008," and Hail Satan won a FringeNYC 2007 Outstanding Playwriting Award. Along with Sean and Jordana Williams, Mac wrote Fleet Week: The Musical, winner of a FringeNYC 2005 Outstanding Musical Award and has had New York productions of Dirty Juanita, The Sky Over Nineveh, and The Lucretia Jones Mysteries.

Universal Robots, directed by Rosemary Andress, is based on Czech playwright Karel Capek's 1921 play R.U.R. "Rossum's Universal Robots", the play that introduced the term "robot" (coming from the Czech word "robota" meaning "forced labor") and the concept of robots, to the world. When World War II began, Capek, who was known for his books on the fear of social disasters and dictatorships, refused to leave Czechoslovakia and was persecuted, along with his brother, Josef (also a writer) by the Nazis. Josef would later be captured and eventually die in a concentration camp.

Rogers' play goes further than mere adaptation and explores of Capek's own amazing and tragic story.  Quoted in a New York theatre blog, Rogers says:

"I didn't want to write an adaptation...I had a whole new idea: a play about Capek - but not the real one, an imaginary Capek inspired by certain facets of the real one. I wanted to take aspects of his real life, and then mash them up with plot elements from R.U.R. to create a science fiction story about the enormous forces that radically change our societies, and the flawed, complex human beings who try to harness and steer those forces..."


Open now, Universal Robots stars Esther Barlow, Jason Howard, David Ian Lee, David Lamberton, Michelle O'Connor, Ridley Parson, Nancy Sirianni, Tarantino Smith, Ben Sulzbach & Jennifer Gordon Thomas and runs through March 7, 2009 at the Manhattan Theatre Source.  For tickets call (212) 501-4751 or check out the website.