Theatre Rhinoceros

Theatre Rhinoceros or Theatre Rhino is a gay and lesbian theatre based in San Francisco. It was founded in the spring of 1977 by Lanny Baugniet (who became the theater's General Manager) and his partner Allan B. Estes, Jr. (who became the theater's Artistic Director). It is a non-profit theater company dedicated to the production of plays by and about gay and lesbian people.

Theatre Rhinoceros is the first gay theater company to employ actors under a professional seasonal agreement. The company was recognized by the California State Assembly on its twenty-fifth anniversary and again as a pioneering organization at the twenty-fifth anniversary remembrance of assassinated San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Their first production, mounted in August 1977, was Lanford Wilson's The Madness of Lady Bright, at the Gay Community Center (then located at 330 Grove Street in San Francisco, now the site of the Performing Arts Parking Garage), produced by Baugniet, and directed by Estes. That first season continued with Gays at Play, Stone Rhino, Gayhem, and David Guerdon's The Laundry, directed by Baugniet. The operating budget for that first year was $3,900 — an amount which doubled every year for the company's first seven years of operation to $250,000 for its 1983-1984 season.

The 1978-1979 season opened with a revamping of Gays at Play, which consisted of LeRoi Jones' The Baptism (directed by Estes) and Fred Puliafito's Para de Noya (directed by Baugniet) — but it was the monumental success of the next production, Doric Wilson's West Street Gang (performed at the South of Market leather bar The Black & Blue), that won the company's first Cable Car Award and enabled the company to establish residence in its first home at the Goodman Building at 1115 Geary Street. The season concluded with Male Rites, which included C.D. Arnold's Downtown Local, Robert Chesley's Hell, I Love You, Lanford Wilson's The Great Nebula in Orion, and Cal Yeomans's Richmond Jim, which production also toured to New York.

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