By Lynn Venhaus
Embarking on his most challenging role to date in an acting career spanning 35 years, William Roth has transformed himself into Charlie, the 600-lb. writing instructor recluse that is the center of Samuel D. Hunter’s play “The Whale.”
St. Louis Actors’ Studio presents “The Whale” April 5 – 21, with performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. at The Gaslight Theater, 358 N. Boyle. For more information: stlas.org.
Wearing a body suit by Angela B. Calin, and engineered and constructed by Laurie Donati of the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, Calif., with prosthetics by costume designer Teresa Doggett, Roth must physically move like someone so morbidly obese as to have issues with the slightest exertion.
Director Annamaria Pileggi made sure his physical gestures matched, and he had watched some episodes of TLC’s “My 600-lb. Life” and other documentaries for research as well.
The play is part of the St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s 16th season, “A Way Forward,” and has provided a strong ensemble environment for its 5-person cast, including Colleen Backer, Nadja Kapetanovich, Thomas Patrick Riley and Lizi Watt. Backer is a regular on The Gaslight Theatre stage, while this is Watt’s third show in two years, and Kapetanovich and Riley are making their debut.
When founded by Roth in 2006, the mission was that “through the use of ensemble work, to explore the endless facets and various themes of the human condition by producing existing and original collaborative theatre.”
Roth, who grew up in the Central West End, purchased and helped rehab The Gaslight Theater, which had been a key fixture in the iconic Gaslight Square heyday, into a 99-seat black box, That continues to be the home for STLAS shows, and also programs concerts and other entertainment acts.
An adjacent restaurant, West End Grill and Pub, opened in 2009, and Roth was one of four owners. It closed and reopened in 2019 with two of the original owners, and that version of WEGAP closed in 2022. It is now operated as Black Mountain Wine House, at 354 N. Boyle.
He continues to be the theater’s artistic director and is a member of SAG/AFTRA and Actors’ Equity. He has produced more than 75 shows at STLAS, including New York premiere productions of “Day of the Dog” and four seasons of the LaBute New Theater Festival at the 59E59 street theaters and The Davenport in Midtown Manhattan.
The festival will celebrate its 10th year this July, and a special edition of all the world-premiere plays LaBute has written for the annual event will be published collectively this year, Roth said. LaBute has contributed a one-act play per year, and has often attended the annual event.
In the July 2013 issue of the publication American Theatre, Roth explained how LaBute agreed to put his name on the festival. When STLAS was staging “The Shape of Things,” he began corresponding with the playwright, and after they produced an anthology of his short plays titled “Just Desserts,” Roth asked.
“He came to me with this idea of a short play festival named after myself. It makes you feel both proud and silly, but if it helps draw in writers and/or audience, I’m willing to do it. I’m a crusader for theatre, wherever it might be,” LaBute told the magazine.
Every year, they receive about 250 submissions from around the globe, and a jury selects which ones should be produced, mostly relationship studies – with an edge. There is also a high school playwrighting contest component, too.
Since 2013, when the St. Louis Theater Circle Awards began, STLAS has won 18 awards and received about triple that in nominations, with 18 nominations garnered in 2014 the most in one year.
Two Best New Play Awards have been for one-acts at the LaBute New Theater Festival — ‘Percentage America” by Carter Lewis and “One Night in the Many Deaths of Sonny Liston” by J.B. Heaps.
Roth has been nominated for his work as George in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Mervyn in Martin McDonagh’s “A Behanding in Spokane.”
At STLAS, his roles have included Horace in Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes,” Teach in David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” Charlie Aikin in Tracy Lett’s “August Osage County,” Saul in Sam Shepard’s “True West,” Robert in David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theatre,” Ben in Harold Pinter’s “The Dumbwaiter” and Peter in Albee’s “The Zoo Story,” Ben in Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys,” Michael Waterman in Steven Dietz’s “Fiction” and Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons.”
During his acting career, he has performed with The Classic Theater Company, American Ballet Theater, River City Players, Magic Smoking Monkey, The Goldenrod Showboat, The International Hemingway Festival, HotHouse Theatre and Muddy Waters.
He spent six years with the Orthwein Theatre Company, appearing in several shows, including “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Our Town,” “Hamlet,” “ER,” and “Harvey.” His Shakespeare productions include “King Lear,” “Richard III,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “A Winter’s Tale,” “As You Like It,” “Macbeth,” “Othello,” and “Antony and Cleopatra.”
In recent years, he has been cast in a couple films, including LaBute’s “Fear the Night” in 2023 and locally shot “Hungry Dog Blues,” which was written and directed by Jason Abrams and won several awards at the 2022 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase.
He will be seen in the upcoming “On Fire,” which stars William H. Macy and John Corbett. Roth plays a construction guy in the film adaptation of St. Louis native John O’Leary’s book about his experience surviving a horrific housefire when he was nine years old and burned on 100% of his body. It was shot in St. Louis last fall, directed by Sean McNamara.
Another side gig is his band, Holy Friars, which plays songs by George Harrison, among other artists.
Coming soon is also the announcement of STLAS’s 17th season. For more information about St. Louis Actors’ Studio, visit www.stlas.org
Here is the Take Ten Q&A with William Roth:
1. What is special about your latest project?
Telling Charlie’s story. Trying to figure out what is going on inside this 600lb man
2. Why did you choose your profession/pursue the arts?
Seeing Plays, Opera, Symphony. Wanting to participate
3. How would your friends describe you?
Idiotic Introvert
4. How do you like to spend your spare time?
Playing hockey
5. What is your current obsession?
My Band “The Holy Friars”
6. What would people be surprised to find out about you?
Enlisted in the Marine Corps on my 17th Birthday
7. Can you share one of your most defining moments in life?
London Trip 1976 — I saw Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley and Antony Hopkins all in different plays over a 10 day period.
8. Who do you admire most?
Most of the people I meet
9. What is at the top of your bucket list?
I don’t have one, just try to achieve something each day..
10. How were you affected by the pandemic years, and anything you would like to share about what got you through and any lesson learned during the isolation periods? Any reflections on how the arts were affected? And what it means to move forward?-
Shut down our season and theater, patrons learned to stay home and watch TV –trying to get them back to the theater one at a time is not easy, the couch is nice place to sit.
11. What is your favorite thing to do in St. Louis?
Forest Park, Zoo, Art Museum, my neighborhood street.
12. What’s next?
Hockey Sunday and Tuesday evenings
More about William Roth:
Age: 60
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
Current location: St. Louis
Family: Wife Elisa, daughter Josephine, son Jack
Education: BS, ASM Aeronautics (yea I know)
Day job: Running STLAS, Roth Investments LLC and The Eleven Inc
First job: US Marine
First play or movie you were involved in or made: The Black Stallion film (1979), South Pacific at Webster Groves Theater Guild-1970ish
Favorite jobs/roles/plays or work in your medium? George (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), Earl Moss (The Late Henry Moss), Thomas Moore (A Man For All Seasons) Bill( Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush – LaBute world premiere),
Dream job/opportunity: I have it
Awards/Honors/Achievements: Honored that folks still come to see our plays
Favorite quote/words to live by: “All Things Must Pass, None of Life’s Strings Can Last. So I Must Be On My Way, Face another Day”
A song that makes you happy: Any song by George Harrison, or The Grateful Dead
Lynn (Zipfel) Venhaus has had a continuous byline in St. Louis metro region publications since 1978. She writes features and news for Belleville News-Democrat and contributes to St. Louis magazine and other publications.
She is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, currently reviews films for Webster-Kirkwood Times and KTRS Radio, covers entertainment for PopLifeSTL.com and co-hosts podcast PopLifeSTL.com…Presents.
She is a member of Critics Choice Association, where she serves on the women’s and marketing committees; Alliance of Women Film Journalists; and on the board of the St. Louis Film Critics Association. She is a founding and board member of the St. Louis Theater Circle.
She is retired from teaching journalism/media as an adjunct college instructor.
