Rogue Machine is heading west

One of the leading black-box theaters in L.A. will relocate from Hollywood to Venice.

Rogue Machine, one of Los Angeles’ more prominent small-theater companies, is heading west this fall, from Hollywood to Venice.

“We’ve been looking for a permanent home for 11 years,” artistic director John Perrin Flynn said.

Several factors are behind the move. Most pressing: Its current home, the Met Theatre on Oxford Avenue near Santa Monica Boulevard, is for sale and couldn’t guarantee longterm occupancy, Flynn said. The 99-seat Electric Lodge in Venice was also in search of a resident company and appealed to Flynn as a blackbox space with flexible seating arrangements.

The new home will have ample parking and valet service, a luxury for small theaters, although Flynn is concerned the company could lose some patrons from Pasadena and Glendale with the move west. He hopes to regain some Westside theatergoers lost when the company moved from Pico Boulevard in 2016.

“The Met is a hallowed space,” Flynn said. “It has been a theater in Los Angeles for 60-plus years. Sam Shepard did premieres, and all kinds of wonderful theater was done there.”

Before moving, Rogue Machine will present a final production, “Gunshot Medley,” at the Met in September. The company’s last day in Hollywood will be Oct. 1, just days ahead of opening in Venice for the U.S. premiere of “Oppenheimer” on Oct. 6.

“We’re going to have a really jampacked few weeks in September,” said Flynn, “Oppenheimer’s” director.

“It’s about making the bomb, which changed the world forever,” Flynn adds. “But it’s also very much about Oppenheimer and the cost to all the scientists and wives involved.”