Fred Kinney News

The Tony Award-winning musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum hits the Garry Marshall Theatre stage, following Ovation Recommended play Master Class.

Theatre of NOTE announces its production of the world premiere of HELLO STRANGER, written by Sharon Yablon and directed by Sarah Figoten Wilson. HELLO STRANGER will preview Friday and Saturday, October 13 and 14, at 8pm, will open on Thursday, October 19 at 8pm and run through Saturday, November 18 at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N Cahuenga Blvd (just north of Sunset) in Hollywood.

It is nearly impossible not to be emotionally affected by the events depicted in PARADE, the stirring, Tony Award-winning 1998 musical inspired by shocking actual events surrounding the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl. It's certainly a heavy, morose subject to wrap an entire musical around, which is probably why PARADE is so rarely produced, despite its high-caliber book by Alfred Uhry and gorgeous music by Jason Robert Brown. But when the material is executed with emotional heft and interesting staging---as it mostly is in Chance Theater's latest production---the results can be powerful, gut-wrenching, and, most importantly, thought-provoking.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its production of PARADE, with book by Alfred Uhry, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, direction by Kari Hayter, and musical direction by Robyn Manion. PARADE will preview from June 30 through July 7; regular performances will begin July 8 and continue through July 30 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its production of PARADE, with book by Alfred Uhry, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, direction by Kari Hayter, and musical direction by Robyn Manion. PARADE will preview from June 30 through July 7; regular performances will begin July 8 and continue through July 30 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Perfection! A Noise Within produces a stunning, modernistic, most entertaining take on MAN OF LA MANCHA, the tale of Don Quixote and his man servant Sancho during the sixteenth century Spanish Inquisition. Co-Producing Artistic Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott most skillfully directs her very talented cast of thirteen staging them in non-stop action.

If American Horror Story decided to do a season set in the time of ancient mythical English kings, you would get Julia Rodriguez-Elliott's King Lear. I highly recommend this eerie interpretation of one of Shakespeare's most produced works.

Video games get the musical comedy treatment in CLAUDIO QUEST, a clever new musical now having its West Coast Premiere performances at Orange County's Chance Theater through February 26 in Anaheim. Those familiar with the 8-bit characters of games like Super Mario Bros. will be amused by the adventures of a pair of heroic brothers whose mission is to save the kidnapped princess from the clutches of a fire-breathing platypus terrorizing the kingdom. When the game suddenly changes players, the heroes are thrown for a loop and must figure out how to navigate and triumph this glitch-filled new world.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its West Coast premiere production of ... Claudio Quest. With music, lyrics and book by Drew Fornarola and Marshall Pailet, direction by Pailet, choreography by Maxx Reed and musical direction by Ryan O'Connell, Claudio Quest will preview from tonight, January 27, through February 3; regular performances will begin February 4 and continue through February 26 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its West Coast premiere production of ... Claudio Quest. With music, lyrics and book by Drew Fornarola and Marshall Pailet, direction by Pailet, choreography by Maxx Reed and musical direction by Ryan O'Connell, Claudio Quest will preview from January 27 through February 3; regular performances will begin February 4 and continue through February 26 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its West Coast premiere production of ... Claudio Quest. With music, lyrics and book by Drew Fornarola and Marshall Pailet, direction by Pailet, choreography by Maxx Reed and musical direction by Ryan O'Connell, Claudio Quest will preview from tonight, January 27, through February 3; regular performances will begin February 4 and continue through February 26 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its West Coast premiere production of ... Claudio Quest. With music, lyrics and book by Drew Fornarola and Marshall Pailet, direction by Pailet, choreography by Maxx Reed and musical direction by Ryan O'Connell, Claudio Quest will preview from January 27 through February 3; regular performances will begin February 4 and continue through February 26 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its West Coast premiere production of ... Claudio Quest. With music, lyrics and book by Drew Fornarola and Marshall Pailet, direction by Pailet, choreography by Maxx Reed and musical direction by Ryan O'Connell, Claudio Quest will preview from January 27 through February 3; regular performances will begin February 4 and continue through February 26 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its West Coast premiere production of … Claudio Quest. With music, lyrics and book by Drew Fornarola and Marshall Pailet, direction by Pailet, choreography by Maxx Reed and musical direction by Ryan O'Connell, Claudio Quest will preview from January 27 through February 3; regular performances will begin February 4 and continue through February 26 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Anaheim's official resident theater company, Chance Theater is pleased to the addition of five additional performances of … A Chorus Line. Book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, directed by Chance's Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen, choreographed by Hazel Clarke, with music direction by Ryan O'Connell.  A Chorus Line opened last Saturday and will continue through August 7th on the Cripe Stage at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center. 

If there was ever one musical that, on the surface, can translate well as an intimately-staged production in a black box theater space, then A CHORUS LINE---the classic 1975 Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning backstage musical---should certainly qualify as a strong contender. This still dazzling, groundbreaking show has been revived at Anaheim's Chance Theater, the lauded small regional theater company in Orange County, CA that has definitively, in the very recent past, shown a knack for taking large musicals and making them smaller, very special ones. For the most part, the same can certainly be said about their newest small-scaled local revival, which continues its extended run through August 7, 2016. Exceedingly admirable despite being a bit rough around the edges, Chance Theater's peppy production reminds audiences old and new why the world of musical theater continues to lure certain dreamy, insanely talented people to this sometimes frustrating, often euphoric, and always competitive profession time and time again.

Anaheim's official resident theater company, Chance Theater is pleased to present a fresh and intimate production of the Broadway musical classic ... A Chorus Line. Book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, directed by Chance's Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen, choreographed by Hazel Clarke, with music direction by Ryan O'Connell. A Chorus Line will preview from July 1 through July 8, regular performances will begin July 9 and continue through July 31 on the Cripe Stage at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center.

Four Clowns' world premiere of playwright David Bridel's LUNATICS & ACTORS wonderfully succeeds as a loving spoof of the acting process. It's to the credit of all involved that what could have been a five-minute Saturday Night Live skit has evolved into 70 minutes of enthralling wit and engaging artistry. Bad acting's truly an art; and to make the bad acting funny, genius!

Now on stage in an exquisite new regional production at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through February 21, 2016, John Logan's riveting Tony Award-winning two-character play RED imagines a specific time period in the life of world-renowned abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko (played with superb gusto by Mark Harelik) and his struggles to remain an appreciated, serious artiste at the dawn of pop art, Andy Warhol, and the rise of pretty (and well-funded) 'over mantle' modern art. With the help of a new young assistant (the impressive Paul David Story), Rothko forges ahead with a high-paying commission to produce a series of murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant, which causes much inner turmoil for the artist.

The tale of the naughty puppet hoping to become a real boy gets an infusion of music, clowning and fun when South Coast Repertory's Theatre for Young Audiences series presents Pinocchio by Greg Banks, based on the classic story by Carlo Collodi. Pinocchio runs Feb. 5-21 on the Julianne Argyros Stage and is directed by Jeremy Aluma. Tickets are on sale at www.scr.org.