2024 Season
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Our 2024 Main Series
As well as our Holiday Shows Jane Austen’s Emma, The Musical and a second holiday show, TYA Family Series production of Fancy Nancy, The Musical, and New Play Readings by our Resident Playwright Dustin H. Chinn, along with Krista Knight, Morgan Hollingsworth, and Khanisha Foster.
See below for more details about all of the upcoming shows in 2024.
Bette & Wylie Aitken
Dear Friends,
We cannot say how excited we are for another season of live theater. Before we get started, we really want to thank the unsung heroes… the Chance Company Members themselves. When this pandemic hit, Chance Theater was on an unbelievable roll – receiving awards and recognition from across Southern California. After the world shut down, the Chance impressed us with how they rallied — creating virtual shows, holding free Zoom conversations with audiences about online shows, bringing Broadway shows into our homes with lively post-discussions, moving their education outreach programs to an online platform, all while the staff sacrificed by taking cuts in their salaries and simultaneously taking on additional responsibilities.
It’s unbelievable to think that this great theater is now finally going to return to where it belongs – as a great theater in Southern California. No longer “the hidden gem.” Chance Theater is the gem.
Space does not allow us to acknowledge the amazing contributions of so many but you know who you are and you know you are loved. We often get more recognition than we deserve, but let us assure you that we receive more than we give.
So if you love the Chance as much as we do – go forth and tell the story, shouting it out from every rooftop. Your love and support will move the Chance mountain.
We look forward to seeing you soon! And all the new family members we recruit!
MAIN SERIES of exciting plays and musicals
2024 Season Producers
Bette & Wylie Aitken
2024 Associate Season Producers
The Family of Mary Kay Fyda-Mar
Hedwig and The Angry Inch
Book by John Cameron Mitchell
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Trask
Directed by Matthew McCray
Music Direction by Lex Leigh
January 26 – February 25, 2024
» Award-Winning Rock Musical
This groundbreaking Obie-winning Off-Broadway smash that took Broadway by storm tells the story of “internationally ignored song stylist” Hedwig Schmidt, a fourth-wall smashing East German rock ‘n’ roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a botched sex-change operation, which has left her with just “an angry inch.” This outrageous and unexpectedly hilarious story is dazzlingly performed by Hedwig (née Hansel) in the form of a rock gig/stand-up comedy routine backed by the hard-rocking band “The Angry Inch.” Using songs and monologues, Hedwig tells her story and her life’s search for “The Origin of Love.” It’s a rocking ride, funny, touching, and ultimately inspiring to anyone who has felt life gave them an inch when they deserved a mile.
NOTE: This show contains mature content and strong language.
Tiny Beautiful Things
Based on the book by Cheryl Strayed
Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos
Co-conceived by Marshall Heyman, Thomas Kail, and Nia Vardalos
Directed by Katie Chidester
April 5-28, 2024
» Based on the best-selling book
Tiny Beautiful Things follows the relationships between an anonymous advice columnist named Sugar and the many real-life readers who pour out their hearts to her. Academy Award nominee Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) adapts Strayed’s book into an enrapturing and uplifting play that surges with emotion and is called by Variety “a theatrical hug in turbulent times.” Tiny Beautiful Things is about reaching when you’re stuck, recovering when you’re broken, and finding the courage to ask the questions that are hardest to answer.
Alma
by Benjamin Benne
Directed by Sara Guerrero
May 3-26, 2024
» Orange County Premiere
Alma and her daughter, Angel, made sixteen wishes long ago: good health, love, carne asada every day, perfect SAT scores, and a spot at UC Davis, to name a few. But now that Angel is 17, she’s got a different vision for her future than her immigrant single mom. Featuring the powerfully fresh voice of playwright Benjamin Benne (from Fullerton, CA), winner of the National Latinx Playwriting Award, Alma is a poetic, funny, and timely play filled with lots of amor and a touch of symbolism. It begs the question: what does the American Dream mean today—and who does it belong to?
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Oánh Nguyễn
Music Direction by Lex Leigh
Choreographed by Mo Goodfellow
July 12 – August 11, 2024
» Macabre Musical Masterpiece
In a barber shop above Mrs. Lovett’s struggling pie shop, Sweeney Todd plots revenge on the lecherous judge who wronged him and his family. In the seedy underbelly of 19th-century London, desperate times lead to diabolical schemes — and strange alliances. With razor-sharp wit and extraordinary songs like “Pretty Women” and “Not While I’m Around,” this Tony Award-winning masterpiece was proclaimed “more fun than a graveyard on the night of the annual skeleton’s ball” by The New York Daily News.
NOTE: This show contains mature content and strong language.
Gloria
by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Marya Mazor
September 27 – October 13, 2024
» Orange County Premiere
Style. Status. Success. A group of twentysomething editorial assistants are pursuing it all at one of New York’s most esteemed cultural magazines. When a seemingly normal day at the office turns out to be anything but, these aspiring journalists recognize an opportunity to seize a career-defining moment. Who has the right to tell whose story? Simultaneously funny and shocking, Gloria is an adrenaline rush of a show as MacArthur “Genius” grant winner Jacobs-Jenkins skewers the cutthroat, opportunistic culture of modern media.
NOTE: This show contains mature content and strong language.
HOLIDAY SERIES
Jane Austen’s Emma, The Musical
Book, Lyrics, and Music by Paul Gordon
Directed by Casey Long
November 29 – December 22, 2024
» Back by popular demand
Jane Austen’s enduring love story is brought to life as a romantic comedy musical. The story revolves around Emma, a well-meaning, but disaster-prone matchmaker, who ignores her own romantic feelings while setting out to find a suitor for her friend Harriet. Her efforts go awry, of course, leading to comic complications. We invite you to fall in love again with one of Jane Austen’s most adored characters, featuring an intelligent and buoyant score from Tony-nominated composer Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre).
A Fantabulous Holiday Musical
December 6-22, 2024
» A Holiday Musical for the Whole Family Returns!
Stay tuned for the announcement of a second holiday musical that is back by popular demand to delight families and celebrate the holidays.
TYA FAMILY SERIES
Fancy Nancy, The Musical
Book & Lyrics by Susan DiLallo
Music & Lyrics by Danny Abosch
Based on the popular “Fancy Nancy” books by Jane O’Connor
and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
Directed by Laura M. Hathaway
May 24 – June 9, 2024
» Encore Presentation
This TYA favorite returns to the Chance for the seventh time. Bring the family and watch as Fancy Nancy and her friends Bree, Rhonda, Wanda, and Lionel get ready to perform in their very first show, “Deep Sea Dances.” Nancy is positive, that’s fancy for 100 percent sure, that she and Bree will be picked to be mermaids. When another girl wins the coveted role of the mermaid, Nancy is stuck playing a dreary, dull tree. Can Nancy bring fancy flair to her role, even though it isn’t the one she wanted?
NEW PLAY READING SERIES
Lipstick Lobotomy
by 2020 Resident Playwright Krista Knight
Directed by Amanda DeMaio
February 7, 2024
» Staged Reading of a New Play
Lipstick Lobotomy imagines a friendship between JFK’s little sister Rosemary Kennedy and the playwright’s great aunt Ginny at an exclusive high-end sanitarium for women in the fall of 1941. The women undergo the peculiar cutting-edge treatments on offer by a society desperate to find the cure for womanhood. When Rosemary is selected by the famous surgeon Dr. Walter Jackson Freeman II for an exciting new procedure, Ginny will do everything in her power to take control of her own future.
Call Your Mother
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Morgan Hollingsworth
April 24, 2024
» Staged Reading of a New Musical
Welcome to Cool Beans Coffee! It’s a rainy Mother’s Day in Astoria, NY, and despite the weather, Cool Beans Coffee, home to the greatest coffee in Queens, is bustling with customers excited about the holiday — all except for their favorite barista, Marco, whose relationship with his mother has soured since his dad passed away. As we meet the various, quirky personalities, from the sweet old lady who just wants to have a conversation at the register to the office intern on the verge of a nervous breakdown, they all try their best to convince Marco to make amends and call his mother on Mother’s Day. Call Your Mother navigates the difficult journey of grief and the empathy and respect that we deserve during that journey, all through an indie/folk score within the charming and eccentric lifestyle of coffee culture.
A New Play by Dustin H. Chinn
by 2024 Resident Playwright Dustin H. Chinn
June 5, 2024
» Staged Reading of a new play by our 2024 Resident Playwright
From the writer of last season’s Colonialism is Terrible, But Phở is Delicious comes a brand new play that is so new that we don’t even have a synopsis for it yet! Check back soon for more details on this new story from one of this country’s most exciting playwrights.
A Commissioned Play by Khanisha Foster
by Khanisha Foster
August 7-10, 2024
» A workshop of a brand new play commissioned by Chance Theater
Join us for a newly commissioned play about a recently divorced woman in her middle years, with a new opportunity to explore her femininity, sexuality, motherhood, and independence. Check back soon for more details for this new story commissioned by the Chance from former Fox Fellow Khanisha Foster.
A New Play by Dustin H. Chinn
by 2024 Resident Playwright Dustin H. Chinn
October 9-12, 2024
» A workshop of a new play by our 2024 Resident Playwright
From the writer of last season’s Colonialism is Terrible, But Phở is Delicious comes a brand new play that is so new that we don’t even have a synopsis for it yet! Check back soon for more details on this new story from one of this country’s most exciting playwrights.
