ROB MURRAY: I’m speaking with Mike Vlessides from the Rogue Players Make Believe Theatre. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you. I think the last Rogues show would have been at the end of 2019, then that wacky pandemic happened. You guys had to cancel last fall. The Rogues are still around?

MIKE VLESSIDES: Absolutely. Rob. The heartbeat of children’s theatre is hard to quell. I mean, obviously there are a lot of question mar, given the pandemic and the rise of the Delta variant, but we’re still here and ready to go as long as circumstances allow us to do so.

RM: Is a fall show in the works for the Rogues?

MV: We are considering it. We would love to do a show this fall. The only issue is whether or not we’d actually be able to do one, given the spread of the Delta variant in this so-called fourth wave of COVID. If the stars and the planets line up we would love to do a fall show this year and get back in the saddle, so to speak.

RM: Well, if that happens, I will definitely follow up and have you back on air. In the meantime though, I know COVID has had an impact on your bottom line.

MV: One of the things that we’ve always prided ourselves on is that we’ve kept our ticket prices really low for years. We started 2004, so 17 years now that the Rogues have been in existence. The last time we did a show, tickets were $5 for kids and $7.50 for adults, the mandate being that a family can come out and watch a show and not have to break the bank. The problem is that our bank account has never been very thick, and our storage costs keep going up. It’s made it really hard for us to stay in business, so to speak, without being able to do a show, because that’s our primary source of our income.

RM: Are you looking for a little help from the community on that end?

MV: We’ve never asked this before and it’s hard to do so, but we’re hoping there’s somebody in the community who has a space they could donate to the Rogues. We don’t need a lot of space; we currently rent a 10×10 unit. Or if there’s somebody who is willing to make a donation to help us get through a year or two of storage, that would be really helpful for us. Otherwise, we’re looking at the possibility of having to shut down our operations, frankly.

RM: Oh, that’d be really sad. You’d be making kids cry.

MV: I think they’ve already done that with some of my acting!

RM: If someone either has a space that they could possibly donate or would like to give some cash to support the Rogues, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you.

MV: They can get in touch with you at the studio and you can pass the message on to me, or they can just send me an email.