BRAVO! 2018
TONY RUST AS THE C AT IN THE
H AT IN SEUSSICAL
RUST NEVER SLEEPS
All the stage is a world for Cottage Theatre’s tireless Tony Rust B Y R I C K L E V I N
once referred to local theater maven Tony Rust as the
hardest-working man in local show biz, but I believe
there’s a more apt description, borrowed from baseball
parlance: Rust is the ultimate utility player, able to fill
a variety of positions, and to fill them rather well. In
utility players, talent and endurance and flexibility find an
invaluable harmony, and Cottage Theatre is lucky to have
Rust on its team.
For instance, it would seem of late that there isn’t a
production at Cottage Theatre upon which Rust hasn’t left
something of an imprint — as director, as set designer, as
a board member, as a builder and painter, and even, occa-
sionally, as an actor strutting and fretting his hour on stage,
only to move on immediately to the next project.
“Partially, it’s just my makeup as a human being,” Rust
says when I ask him about his ceaseless work in local the-
ater, which includes teaching in the Fine Arts Department
at Marist High School. “I’m not a happy person if I’m
not busy, if I’m not doing things. I interweave my theater
worlds. I balance my work.”
In appearance — on stage, and even more in person —
Rust personifies the image of the frenetic entertainer, his
fingers in several pots at once. He has an air of vaudeville
about him, lanky and charismatic and sepia-tinted, though
he also carries a distinct vibe of the freewheeling ’70s:
mustachioed, a bit loose-limbed and shaggy, but whip-
smart and alert to his surroundings, and at home with ram-
bling like a rolling stone. Rust wouldn’t have been out of
place in a Sydney Lumet flick — say Serpico, or Dog Day
I
Afternoon.
Part of this cosmopolitan impression derives from
Rust’s peripatetic background, including a long stint on the
East Coast. Born and raised in Wyoming, he studied vocal
and theater arts at the University of Oregon in the mid ’70s
before taking part in a 1979 production of Godspell that
toured Eugene parks. After a brief period in Texas, Rust
took the big leap, moving to New York, where he served
as artistic director of a small Shakespeare company before
he and his wife ran a scene shop for Broadway and off-
Broadway productions.
Rust and his wife moved back to Oregon from the Big
Apple some 13 or 14 years ago, relocating to Cottage
Grove, where Janet Rust had gone to high school. “We got
involved with Cottage Theatre pretty much after we got
back here,” Tony Rust says, adding that his wife acted in
the first production they were both involved in. “That kind
of pulled us in,” he says. “Eventually it became the place
we hang out most of the time.”
Hanging out is one thing, but doing it as a volunteer
who is willing to do everything from hitting the boards to
painting them is another altogether. Susan Goes, executive
director of Cottage Theatre, says Rust is an example the
kind of volunteer that community theaters “wish we could
clone.”
“He readily shares his wealth of design and directing
experience and is deeply committed to producing work of
the highest standard on our stage,” Goes says. “Tony is a
clear leader within our community of production volun-
teers, and he inspires and mentors less-experienced theater
artists.”
Community theaters, when running on all cylinders,
can present audiences with “the best part of theaters,” Rust
says. “Everybody that’s involved wants to do it and is in
love with it.”
Because venues like Cottage Theatre run largely on
volunteer hours, he says, the trick is finding balance —
between working hard and having fun, as well as between
entertaining audiences and pushing the envelope.
“We do push the envelope,” Rust says, both in terms
of the material presented and the scope of the theater’s
enterprise and its ability to mount bigger, more complex
shows. “Our dream is that one day it would be on the level
of what Ashland’s Shakespeare Festival grew into, that we
would grow into providing stipends and salaries for more
people, and that more college kids could afford to make
the rehearsals.”
Right now, Rust is throwing a good portion of his ap-
parently boundless energy into Act Three, a huge renova-
tion of Cottage Theatre with a price tag of more than $1
million; the upgrades will include more seating, refurbish-
ing the lobby, fixing the proscenium and, in general, “just
breathing it out a little bit more,” he says. The renovations
are set to begin after next year’s spring show.
“The center of our existence this year is Act III,” Rust
says. “It’s a huge, huge project. It’s going to have a huge
impact on our lives. It’s just a great, warm, welcoming
space to work in, both onstage and off, and we’re going to
make it better.”
And, never one to stop short of exhaustion, Rust is try-
ing to reinvigorate another pet project. A few years back, a
cancer scare caused him to cancel a production of Bloody,
Bloody Andrew Jackson, an edgy emo-rock musical. “The
cancer was hard, but having to tell everybody no…” he
trails off, acknowledging that the experience still brings
tears to his eyes.
This past presidential election — “Politics are pretty
hairy right now,” he understates — convinced him to try
again, and hence his side project Fab Performances was
born. The troupe of musicians remounted the canceled
Andrew Jackson musical, and then Rust envisioned the
company going on to recreate classic albums by legendary
bands like The Doors and The Rolling Stones, with Rust
often taking lead vocals.
“The goal is to have this ongoing company that every
month or two is doing a new album,” he says. “It’s kind
of rock and roll on a theatrical template.” It was recently
announced that Fab Performances will perform John Len-
non’s solo album Imagine.
The show will be a fundraiser for Act III. And that’s
Tony Rust through and through — killing two birds with
one stone. ▪
Fab (Favorite Album Band) Performances does the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed,
Friday, Sept. 14 at the Bob Deveraux Theatre at 1900 Kingsley Road. $15 gen-
eral admission, $10 student/senior. fabperformances.org.
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eugeneweekly.com • September 6, 2018
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