Roger Rueff: Oil Engineer with a Bug

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The rise of 36-year-old Roger Rueff in the theatre world is not remotely connected with any of the usual points on the map of an American Playwright's Progress. No Yale, no Humana Festival, no Mark Taper Forum or O'Neill National Playwrights Conference readings. Instead, Rueff arrived on the scene via Colorado School of Mines, the Marathon and Amoco Oil companies, and the suburban Naperville, Ill. community theatre.

Armed with a somewhat irrelevant Ph.D. in chemical engineering, and until recently a full-time employee in Amoco's research division, Rueff suddenly secured a pair of critically praised professional productions at California's South Coast Repertory. Not only did the …