What a weekend we had at Chance-a-thon 2019!

Over 1,000 people stepped up in a major way last weekend to show their support of the Chance and the impact the Chance has had on their community. Thanks to their efforts, Chance artists can continue to tell stories that matter, students on the Autism Spectrum can express themselves, at-risk teens can tell their stories, and local veterans can share their acts of heroism that so often go untold.

We are so grateful to everyone. You all have made such a difference.

Chance-a-thon was conceived eight years ago as a wild ride of an event. It would accomplish multiple things at the same time — raise much-needed funds for the theater, give Chance artists and Company Members an opportunity to create their own shows, and engage our community by giving them a chance to experience theater from onstage.

You all have proven once again that this ride has been worth taking again and again and again.

For those who weren’t there (or just couldn’t see everything), here’s a brief recap of Chance-a-thon 2019:

Day 1: Saturday, March 23

• We kicked off Chance-a-thon 2019 at 12:15pm on the Fyda-Mar Stage with Jon Peterson in The Theatre is a Lady. Accompanied on the keyboard by Bill Wolfe, this was a twist on the standard musical cabaret performance. Jon thinks it’s unfair that women have some of the best songs in musical theater, so he turned the tables and treated his audience to new versions of classics.
• Next up was Chance-a-thon regular, Ana Bomgaars. This year she brought along her talented friends and family to present a funny and moving cabaret called You Will Be Found. 
• For the first show on the Cripe Stage, Chance Theater Resident Artist Rachel Oliveros Catalano returned to the Chance-a-thon with I’m a mom… AND. Rachel explored the many different facets of her life of being a Mom AND many things, from her friend-making superpower to her passion for musical theater.
• While Rachel was singing and dancing, we had Chris Perez with Hombres Primitivo on the Fyda-Mar in The Biker Realtor. Starting his audience off slowly with a solo performance (that added a surprise guest from the audience halfway through), before he brought out his Hombres and they treated the audience to a rock concert in our 50-seat space.
• David Rusiecki was on the Fyda-Mar next with his original play, The Big 3-0. This at-times funny and at-times introspective journey of a stand-up comedian facing the hardest month of his life was gripping and had audiences rooting for his character to find his happy ending.
• We love having community members of all ages participate in the Chance-a-thon, and we were very excited to have the Integrated Arts Student Playwrights from OCSA performing some original scenes and monologues that they’d written for Taking it ‘From Page to Stage’. This was a culmination of many weeks of work, and the audiences were treated to a collective of young voices offering their perspectives on the stories they want to tell.
• Chance Artist Shannon Page gathered together some other familiar faces (including James and the Giant Peach co-stars Richard Comeau, Kristofer Buxton, Lydia Margitza, Tyler Marshall, and Lily Bryson, along with Casey Dean) for Strong Coffee, Weak Tea — Stories & Songs. With Carol Roman on keys, this talented group shook the stage with songs about love, pain, and beautifully awkward love.
• Resident Artists Jennifer Ruckman and Alex Bueno were back for the second year in a row with an updated version of their original play, Mommies Anonymous. Featured in 2018 as part of our OTR New Works program, this comedy is filled with parent antics such as changing the lyrics of popular songs to sing to your baby… to touching moments encouraging the moms to reach out if they need help, because we’re all in this parenting thing together.
• Meanwhile, on the Cripe we had Rachel Sarah Mount’s beautiful voice on full display in [almost] Queen of Broadway. Rachel has appeared in the Chance-a-thon multiple times, although she will apparently not be returning next year because she has been hired to perform professionally. After seeing her multiple times over the years, it’s easy to see why!
• Going into Saturday evening, we had Michael Canas performing in Tiresias in Blue. The play is a modern retelling of a classic Greek story exploring the life of Greek prophet, Tiresias, his tumultuous relationships, and the heavy burden he had to carry with the power to predict the future.
• Closing out the Fyda-Mar Stage in one of the coolest ways possible, Angelica Tan and her musician friends presented A Night at the Jazz Club. Having this jazz concert in the Fyda-Mar was an absolute thrill, featuring standards and original pieces. Although our favorite part may have been when they went “off-script” (as it were) and improvised a song. Wow!
• Lastly, but not leastly, Seth Kennard and Alondra Lucatero presented the original play, Pattywack. Two patients in a psychiatrist’s office showed us what it means to connect…in all the moments of joy and all the moments of deceit (the psych visits are court-mandated after-all).

Day 2: Sunday, March 24

• The second part of this weekend-long festival started with a staged reading of a new romantic comedy by Georgia Well… Never In This Lifetime. Featuring many familiar Chance faces, including Camryn and Casey Long as the romantic leads (well, at least for a little while), Resident Artists Karen O’Hanlon, Karen Webster, and Darryl B. Hovis, as well as Jeff Lowe (Big Fish) and Kelsey Somerville. With a lot of humorous moments and a personal journey of spiritual discovery, audience members are waiting to see when this screenplay will be hitting the big screen!
• First up on the Fyda-Mar on Sunday was Sabrina Rae Pacheco in Sabrina the Rae of Sunshine. She sang songs about universal emotions and passion, pulling from contemporary music and poetry.
• Chance Fellow Robyn Walton returned to the Chance-a-thon with another original play, this time a little more risque than his versions of Peter Pan and Tom Sawyer. The new comedy, Adam and Eve: The First Naturists was a hilarious and contemporary take on the story of Adam and Eve, garnering lots of laughs and reflecting on the many familiar misunderstandings between women and men.
• Edgar Andrew Torrens brought some friends along to give Chance-a-thon audiences An Afternoon of Contemporary Theater on the Cripe. Edgar and his friends sang songs by characters they couldn’t play, songs by characters they have already played, and songs that they just really loved a lot.
• We are so happy that so many of our participants from our different Speak Up programs — Teens, Spectrum, and Veterans — were able to join us at the Chance-a-thon on Sunday. The Teens Speak Up students did a staged reading of selections from the original show they wrote last summer, the Spectrum Speak Up kids performed scenes and monologues, and the Veterans Speak Up participants did a question and answer session with the captivated audience.
• Chance Theater Founding Artist Erika C. Miller brought along her “usual band” — Bill Strongin, Jon Hyrkas, and Rob Blaney — to present Erika’s “Best of” set! Erika has performed in almost every single Chance-a-thon, sharing her beautiful voice with sold-out audiences. This year, she took her audience on a trip into the past with highlights from those past performances. With her endearingly lovely charisma and effortless vocal performance, everyone thought things couldn’t have been better. Until… Erika’s son, Martin, ran onstage during the curtain call. Cue the “awwwwwwwwww”s…. Because there were a lot of them!!
  
• Closing out the Chance-a-thon on the Cripe Stage, Resident Artist and Lizzie music director, Robyn Manion gathered musicians, friends, family and students for a fun-filled 90-minute concert… Little Black Dress. Robyn regaled us with stories from her life and the music that underscores its most important elements, from pride in her students performing alongside her, to the act of seeking love.
• And for our final Chance-a-thon performance, Shannon Murphy and her friends gave us Funny Girl. No, not that “Funny Girl.” This was a cabaret with four talented and charismatic performers, led by Shannon who seemed like she could have just as easily done a stand-up routine. However, when she showed off her killer vocals, we were glad she didn’t.

Every year, the Chance-a-thon is made possible thanks to the work of our amazing volunteers, performers, and patrons. Without them, what we do in this community would not be possible. So, from the bottom of our hearts…

THANK YOU!

And we’ll see you next year!