Incorporated in 1923,[2] its first production, Wedding Bells, by playwright Salisbury Field,[3] opened January 19, 1925 at the German House on Rochester's Gregory Street.
The last RCP production at the Playhouse before it was sold in 1984 was Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters, which opened May 11, 1984.
From 1984 to 1992 RCP's productions were staged in an intimate cabaret style theatre housed in the Holiday Inn at 120 East Main Street.
In the fall of 1992 RCP moved to the Orcutt-Botsford Fine Arts Center (adjacent to St. John Fisher college)on East Avenue and remained there until 1995.
One reviewer, David L. George, theater critic for the Democrat and Chronicle from 1911 to 1956, described the 1931 production of Old Lady 31 by Rachel Crothers as "a type of play which is seldom written now, when novelty and frank treatment of sex themes are demanded by the paying patrons.
Another reviewer, Amy H. Croughton, described the same play as "an out-moded, lavender and old lace sort of thing heavily loaded with sentimentality and deriving its comedy chiefly from charicture and exaggeration."
At that time RCP also launched the careers of professional actors Robert Forster and Jerry Vogel.
From the 1960s forward RCP has staged a variety of challenging works including; dramas, comedies, musicals and the classics.
By the early 1970s RCP receded as other community theater organizations in Rochester began producing and attracting significant audiences.
The Playhouse itself deteriorated over time and was abandoned as a performance space from 1976 to 1980 when productions were staged at various venues including Monroe Community College.
Over the following years, they were assisted by several set designers including Barry Tuttle, who produced Town and Country Summer Theater for many seasons in East Rochester, William Andia, who joined RCP's 20th season when he was 15, learned his theater craft and came back in 1960 to fill an emergency vacancy then stayed for three years more, and Betsy Hall, who worked as scenic designer from 1953 to 1976.