Douglas Peruski has been operating the Square Peg Players for five years to both critical and artistic acclaim. But he says that the time has come for him to see if he has what it takes to succeed in New York.

The University of Georgia graduate who spent three years as a systems analyst at NCR says he and co-founders Thomas and Angela Forsythe agree that they have become big fish in the small pond of Duluth, and that it is time for them to move on. Once Forsythe’s play No Rights Reserved finishes its run, and after a brief revival of Not Again!, the Square Peg Players’ famous barn and performance center on the outskirts of Duluth will bring the curtain down for good.

Douglas Peruski is vague about his long-term plans for the troupe he and the Forsythes refer to as “the Squares,” although it is expected they will be reconstituted in some form in New York. He has hinted that the group will stage Forsythe’s new play, Elastic Magnet. But Peruski’s short term plans are quite promising. He has been cast as gang member Diesel in a new production of West Side Story with rehearsals set to begin in the spring of 2015. The musical opens next summer.

Douglas Peruski describes the new production of West Side Story as “off-off-off, and really way off Broadway,” suggesting a tiny venue one might not expect to accommodate what is normally a large and lavish production. “Off-off Broadway” generally means a theatre of fewer than one hundred seats. One suspects that Peruski is making a joke.

Only five actors have been associated with The Square Peg Players for the duration of the troupe. In addition to Peruski and the two Forsythes, founding members Allyson Fielder and Brian Sugarman have been with the Squares since its inception. Neither is making the move to New York: Sugarman says that he is too old (he is sixty-eight), while Fielder is a tenured Theatre Arts professor at Duluth Community College and is not willing to relocate at this stage of her career.

One thing is clear: Douglas Peruski is committed to the theatre and will remain active in it, regardless of how things go in New York. "The important thing for me is to act," he says. "If I flop in New York, and have to come back here, then that's fine. At least I tried. I don't need to be a star. But I do need to act."