'Parties-on-the-Plaza' to Power Up 2015 OFF CENTER FESTIVAL at Segerstrom Center, 1/24-30

Segerstrom Center for the Arts has expanded its 2015 Off Center Festival to include two Parties-on-the-Plaza (POP) Saturday, January 24 and Friday, January 30. The first POP will feature Orange County rocker Nick Waterhouse. On January 30, the party continues with the cumbia, afrobeat, trad funk fusion of Jungle Fire and the cold-blooded blend of deep soul, rare funk, and afro- disco (with a raw rock star edge!) of Orgone.

In addition to the music and the theatre, culinary adventure will be provided by some of Orange County's premiere food truck companies on January 24 and 30. Waff 'N Roll, Mustache Mike's, Frijolito's Mobile Coffee Shop and India Jones Chow Truck for the January 24 Party-on-the-Plaza and Adobo Express, The Burnt Truck, Bakery Truck and Hobo Co Pizza on January 30. Other trucks and cuisines will be added. Leatherby's Café Rouge in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall will offer a special post-performance, low-price menu January 21, 23, 24, 30 and 31. Following performances, audiences and actors will have the opportunity to mix, mingle, socialize and enjoy a number of casual dining offerings created just for the Off Center Festival.

The fourth annual Off Center Festival runs January 21 - 31, 2015 and features ten exciting artists and companies performing at the Center for the first time. In addition to Nick Waterhouse, Jungle Fire and Orgone, this year's festival includes the West Coast premieres of Mehr Theatre Group's Timeloss and Spain's Agrupacio?n Sen?or Serrano's Brickman Brando Bubble Boom. Making Southern California debuts are Marga Gomez performing Lovebirds and Amy O'Neal in her Opposing Forces. Additional Center debuts include Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox, Roger Guenveur Smith in Rodney King and Kristina Wong in a preview of her newest show, The Wong Street Journal. The Center's Off Center Lounge in Leatherby's Café Rouge will again be open and offering a late-night menu and music.

The January 24 and 30 Parties-on-the Plaza are FREE. All other tickets are $25, except for Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which are $25, $35 and $45. Tickets are available now and can be purchased online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. The TTY number is (714) 556-2746. There will also be $10 Student Rush tickets available based on availability one hour prior to each performance; two tickets per performance with valid student identification. Some performances are suggested for mature audiences only. Contact the Box Office for suggestions. Artists and program are subject to change. For more information, visit SCFTA.org/OffCenter.

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Mehr Theatre Group: Timeloss
West Coast Premiere
Performed in Farsi with English supertitles
January 21 & 22, 2015 - Judy Morr Theater

This Iranian-based theater company makes its West Coast premiere in the Center's Off Center Festival. 2004: The young Iranian theatermaker Amir Reza Koohestani makes his international debut with Dance on Glasses, a subtle and candid portrayal of the end of young love. 2014: Koohestani creates a fictionalized reunion of the actors from Dance on Glasses. Having separated in the intervening years, they confront the distance between their personal biographies and collective histories in this intimate portrait of Iranian life. Amir Reza Koohestani is one of Iran's most successful and prolific playwright-directors. Dance on Glasses won international acclaim and toured for four years. He is the first director to win two consecutive awards for the "Best Theatre Production of the Year" in Iran (Ivanov, 2011 and The Fourth Wall, 2012). http://www.mehrtheatregroup.com

Agrupacio?n Sen?or Serrano: Brickman Brando Bubble Boom
West Coast Premiere
Co-produced by Festival TNT - Terrassa Noves Tende?ncies
Performed in English and Spanish with English supertitles
January 21 - 24, 2015 in Samueli Theater

The creation of the mortgage system. A shantytown on fire. Funky music blaring. Tahitian paradises. 150,000 foreclosures in Spain in 2012. Marlon Brando portraying the role of Victorian builder John Brickman. Using live feed video, rhythmic music and minimalist choreography, Agrupacio?n Sen?or Serrano creates a searing indictment of rampant consumerism and the speculative bubble. Brickman Brando Bubble Boom is an exuberant manifesto on the right to housing and the search for a home. Agrupacio?n Sen?or Serrano is a Barcelona-based performing arts company that combines theatre, dance, video-art and interactive technologies into riveting theatre to explore human aspirations and the abuse of power.

Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox
January 23, 2015 - Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall
Special price: $25, $35 & $45

Don vintage threads and dance, dance, dance. Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox perform present day music a? la pop hits of the past: Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" assayed as a doo-wop number; Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop" tricked out in flapper jazz; Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" rendered a 1940s big-band standard. Bradlee uses music itself to inform audiences about 20th century song styles, demonstrate the remarkable elasticity of the pop form, confound cultural context and unite generations. "I reimagine a song in another style because I want to hear it that way," says Bradlee. "Coming to a PMJ show is like time-traveling back to Old Hollywood - it's an experience."

Marga Gomez: Lovebirds
Southern California Premiere Directed by David Schweizer
January 23 & 24, 2015 - Studio Performance Space

In her tenth solo play, GLAAD award-winning comic performer Marga Gomez portrays a cast of incurable romantics as they chase their hearts' desires - into the night, through decades and to insane lengths. Orestes, a macho mai?tre d' is infatuated with a tin-eared singer who is married to an academic who never sleeps and is never awake. On the other side of town, Orestes' daughter cuts off her hair, joins a coven and starts dating the captain of a women's football team. Throughout, they are observed and documented by Polaroid Phillie, an ageless nightclub photographer and fixture at gay bars, Spanish restaurants and wherever passion happens.

Nick Waterhouse
Center Debut
January 24, 2015 - Arts Plaza FREE

The Nick Waterhouse concert on the Arts Plaza is free, and will also offer an array of good and meal selections from some of Orange County's most popular food trucks.

Huntington Beach native Nick Waterhouse believes everybody wants to be somebody else. One of his heroes, Van Morrison, got his start covering Bobby Bland, whose own musical idol was Nat "King" Cole. In Waterhouse's view, emulation is a journey; you never truly succeed, but as the singer, guitarist and songwriter puts it, "You become something on the way there." Today's, he's his own man, a successful recording artist with a well-received LP
and several high-profile tours and collaborations to his name. His latest work still embodies the struggle of his early forays. During "This is a Game," Waterhouse sets up a snarly, post-surf guitar solo with a succinct statement of a cynical outlook: "This is a game / Please remember my words / And don't get upset when you don't get what you think you deserve." And on the gothic-soul strut "Let It Come Down," he meditates on the inevitability of pain. "If there's gonna be rain tonight," he sings in a stoic croon. "Let it come down."

Roger Guenveur Smith: Rodney King
Center Premiere
January 27 - 30, 2015 - Samueli Theater

History, poetry and tragedy collide as Roger Guenveur Smith tackles the thorny odyssey of Rodney King - from his first shocking appearance in the national spotlight as the victim of police brutality, his involuntary martyrdom that ignited the L.A. riots, to his lonely death at the bottom of a swimming pool. Smith deftly deconstructs the media frenzy to reveal a startling humanity at its center. In light of current events that beg comparison, Smith's work resonates with a new immediacy. He seamlessly fuses facts and fiction, motion and emotion into a gripping narrative that poses impossible questions while illuminating his subject with grace and empathy. The multi-talented Smith starred in the HBO series K Street, OZ and Unchained Memories: Readings from the slave narratives and previous theater triumphs, including The Watts Towers Project and Juan and John.

Kristina Wong: The Wong Street Journal (Preview)
Center Premiere
Directed by Emily Mendelsohn
January 29 & 30, 2015 - Studio Performance Space

Kristina Wong's self-skewering new masterpiece relates how a not-so-white-savior becomes a hip hop legend in Northern Uganda. A solo performer, writer, actor, educator, filmmaker and "culture jammer," she was named "One of the Seven Funniest Eco-Comedians" by Mother Nature Network. Her most notable touring show - Wong Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - looked at the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American women, toured to more than 40 venues and was made into a film. She has also performed on General Hospital, Nickelodeon's Nicky Ricky Dicky and Dawn and dozens of independent films. She's been a commentator for American Public Media's Marketplace, PBS, CNN, Jezebel, xoJane, Playgirl Magazine, a guest on FXX's Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, Al Jazeera's The Stream and Huffington Post Live.

Amy O'Neal: Opposing Forces
Southern California Debut
January 29 - 31, 2015 - Judy Morr Theater

Choreographer Amy O'Neal examines the paradoxical nature of B-Boy culture as it relates to femininity and the value systems of dance battling, commercial dance, stage performances and freestyle cyphers. How do these different environments affect expression? Where are stereotypes changing and where do they remain the same? O'Neal pries open these topics via conversation, collaboration and transfixing dance moves. Performed to original music by DK Waylon Dugan, aka WD4D.

Jungle Fire - Center Debut
January 30, 2015 - Arts Plaza

This is the rare ensemble where the drummers are out front - it's a full Latin percussion section and the mix lets you hear all of their interplay. The arrangements are brisk and punchy - guitar and bass always in the pocket, horns spraying the melody over the top, the whole thing calibrated to keep dancers continuously active. Members have performed with Stevie Wonder, Joe Bataan, Breakestra, Ozomatli, Quantic, Alice Russell, La Santa Cecilia, Simple Citizens, Celia Cruz, Orgone, The Greyboy Allstars and the list goes on. Named one of KCRW's Bands We Love.

Orgone - Center Debut
January 30, 2015 - Arts Plaza

Orgone steams up the stages wherever they play with their self-proclaimed cold-blooded blend of deep soul, rare funk and afro-disco with a raw rock star edge. Shifting effortlessly from slyly slinky to seismically cinematic, the music remains tough and uncluttered. The band has been the backing band on numerous major label releases, most notably, Alicia Keys' "As I Am" album and Cee Lo Green's multiple Grammy Award-winning track "Fool for You." Orgone delivers dirty, organic soul with heart, music that grabs you by the collar, pulls you to your feet and onto the dance floor. Party on Festival fans!

Off Center Lounge

January 21 - 31, 2015 in Leatherby's Café Rouge

It isn't over 'til it's over - and every performance in the Off Center Festival should continue with a visit to the informal Off Center Lounge in Leatherby's Cafe? Rouge located in the Rene?e and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Audiences will have the opportunity to meet the artists to discuss and review their experiences and reactions to these thought-provoking works. Leatherby's has created a special Off Center late night low-cost menu.

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Segerstrom Center for the Arts is unique as both an acclaimed arts institution and as a multi- disciplinary cultural campus. It is committed to supporting artistic excellence on all of its stages, offering unsurpassed experiences, and engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance and a diverse array of inspiring programs.

Previously called the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Center is Orange County's largest non-profit arts organization and owns and operates the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall and intimate 250-seat Judy Morr Theater, which opened in 1986, and the 2,000-seat Rene?e and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which opened in 2006 and also houses the 500-seat Samueli Theater, the studio performance space and Boeing Education Lab. A spacious arts plaza anchors Segerstrom Center for the Arts and is home to numerous free performances throughout the year as part of Segerstrom Center for the Arts' ongoing Free for All series. The American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School at Segerstrom Center opens in 2015.

The Center presents a broad range of programming for audiences of all ages, including international ballet and dance, national tours of top Broadway shows, intimate performances of jazz and cabaret, contemporary artists, classical music performed by renowned chamber orchestras and ensembles, family- friendly programming, free performances open to the public from outdoor movie screenings to dancing on the plaza and many other special events. The Center's arts-in-education programs are designed to inspire young people through the arts and reach hundreds of thousands of students each year.

In addition to the presenting and producing institution Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the 14-acre campus also embraces the facilities of two independent acclaimed organizations: Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory and a site designated as the future home of the Orange County Museum of Art.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts is also proud to serve as the artistic home to three of the region's major performing arts organizations: Pacific Symphony, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the Pacific Chorale, who contribute greatly to the artistic life of the region with annual seasons at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

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