Given another decade, it may have to start lying about its age. Theatre Rhinoceros, San Francisco and the nation's "longest-running professional queer theater company," turns 30 this season. Founded in 1977 by Allan Estes, its first artistic director, and managing director Lanny Baugniet, the Rhino has long enjoyed a higher national than local profile as an incubator of new gay and lesbian plays, becoming the first gay theater to receive National Endowment for the Arts funding.
It's celebrating with a look back, "Theatre Rhinoceros: The First Thirty Years." Compiled and staged by current Artistic Director John Fisher, the show is billed as a revue of "original songs and scenes from three decades of new theater about the love that not only speaks but also shouts, sings and dances its name."
There's a lot to celebrate, not the least of which is the Rhino's survival. It's had to weather more than the usual share of small arts institutions' financial challenges and growing pains - including the cooptation of its special niche, as gay, lesbian and transgender themes have found homes in mainstream theater, films and TV.
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