Posts Tagged ‘Chance Theater’
SEMINAR
Thursday, October 6th, 2016What Terrence Spencer was to his tyrannized music students in Damien Chazelle’s Oscar-winning Whiplash, so novelist-turned-magazine correspondent Leonard is to the equally intimidated writers attending his uber-pricey workshop in Theresa Rebeck’s darkly comedic, dramatically potent Seminar, now being given a terrific Chance Theater Orange County Premiere.
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A CHORUS LINE
Sunday, July 10th, 2016It takes balls to reimagine a classic and an abundance of talent to pull it off, particularly when the classic in question is the 1975 megaclassic A Chorus Line. Fortunately, Chance Theater’s Oanh Nguyen and Hazel Clarke have both, resulting in an A Chorus Line that might provoke protests from purists who’d have Michael Bennett’s direction and choreography set in stone but will likely thrill everyone else, this reviewer included.
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THE BIG MEAL
Thursday, May 5th, 2016The meet-cute sequence that introduces us to 20somethings Sam and Nicole is but the preamble to The Big Meal, Dan LeFranc’s remarkable meditation on birth, death, life, love, and the whole damn thing, now getting a laughter-and-tear-filled Southern California Premiere that is one of Chance Theater’s finest intimate productions ever.
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DOGFIGHT
Monday, February 15th, 2016A mean-spirited U.S. Marine “tradition” yields unexpectedly touching romantic results in Dogfight, the Louise Lortel Award-winning Outstanding Musical of 2012, now being given a powerful Los Angeles and Orange County Premiere by Anaheim Hills’ illustrious Chance Theater.
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A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Sunday, October 4th, 2015A man undergoing a crisis of faith attempts to reconnect with the teenage son he gave up for adoption eighteen years ago in Samuel D. Hunter’s dark, gritty tragicomedy A Bright New Boise, now getting an electric Orange County production at Chance Theater.
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THE DRAGON PLAY
Friday, August 7th, 2015RECOMMENDED
Interspecies love fuels Jenny Connell Davis’ The Dragon Play, a gorgeously designed Chance Theater production most likely to enchant those willing and able to buy into its boy-meets-dragon, boy-loses-dragon conceit.
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HAIRSPRAY
Sunday, July 19th, 2015Chance Theater reinvents Hairspray—and brilliantly so—for an immersive, intimate, (almost) in-the-round revival unlike any I’ve seen before … and trust me, I’ve seen a bunch.
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SAMSARA
Sunday, May 10th, 2015A 30something NoCal couple hire a surrogate in faraway India to give birth to the child neither is biologically capable of conceiving in Lauren Yee’s imaginative, funny, at times overly cutesy, but ultimately quite moving Samsara, now getting a splendidly acted and directed West Coast Premiere at Anaheim Hills’ Chance Theater.
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