Amazing weekend at Chance-a-thon 2018!

by Chance Theater Board Member, and Chance-a-thon Marathoner, Susie Dittmar

People from all over flocked to the Chance last weekend to help support our education and artistic programs. The weekend of live theater united more than 160 performers, with over 900 patrons watching, and 250 fundraisers that donated their time, money, and passion for bringing bold and intimate theater to our town.

For those who weren’t there (or just for those who couldn’t see everything), here’s a brief recap of Chance-a-thon 2018:

Day 1: Saturday, March 24

• We kicked off our event with the quirky and funny A Hero’s Journey. Written and directed by two hilarious moms — Angela Gutierrez and Michelle Knighton. The ladies recruited family members to be actors and proceeded to have them deliver dream lines where their kids professed their unending love for their mothers.
• Next up was Journey to Get Cast, which showcased the star of our recent production of Violet — Monika Peña. She shared the struggles every actor experiences, including stage fright, working “interesting” jobs while waiting for stardom, and the overwhelming desire to be the best artist you can be. She punctuated each experience with a powerfully sung tune.
• The narrator from our recent James and the Giant Peach, Tyler Marshall, returned to the Fyda-Mar Stage with his cabaret, So Long Boulder City. He crooned through memorable moments influenced by some exceptional people in his life.
• Growing Up Cuban in the OC starred Resident Artist, Rachel Oliveros Catalano, as she recounted her coming-of-age sojourn as a person of color in Yorba Linda. The poignant and insightful cabaret was a lovely lesson of being Cuban, and being a member of many other communities at the same time.
• Ana Bomgaars and her friends, along with a very young daughter, shared their beautiful voices to sing some of their favorite songs in Lights, Camera, Sing!
• Associate Artistic Director Jocelyn A. Brown and Founding Artist Erika C. Miller took us down Chance’s memory lane in Looking Back… Celebrating Chance’s 20th Season. The songbirds highlighted sweet-sounding songs from the almost two decades of our theater’s history.
• Soprano Ashley Wagner spun her spell around favorite tunes in Family Classics Sing-along. The toe-tapping audience may not have always joined in with the singing, but everyone was smiling through the whole set.
• A group of five actors starred in Another Life, a one-act play written and directed by Rob Kirby. A group of mob kids who didn’t follow in the family business visit their father in jail. Along the way, the snitch is revealed who got dad thrown in prison.
• Clint Foley presented Chances & Chalices: A Tabletop Musical, which followed a quote-unquote nerdy group of friends playing a board game. The twist? They are also musical theater actors who spontaneously break out in song.
• Wrapping up the first day of the Chance-a-thon was Barbara Delgado’s original one-act Northwest Airlines. We were taken onboard a trans-Atlantic flight to Amsterdam where a series of crazy events transpire, producing a wild ride for our audiences at the end of the first leg of the theatrical marathon.

Day 2: Sunday, March 25

• The afternoon began with Robin Walton and Jessica Cosley’s musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer. The family-friendly musical was a faithful adaptation of the adventures of Mark Twain’s most durable character and included audience participation. One of the great images from the Chance-a-thon weekend was seeing all the kids Tom “recruited” to come onstage and whitewash the fence for him.
• The HSMT Elite Performance group and our next generation’s Tony winners sang a variety of tunes in Musical Theater Review.
• Longtime Resident Artists Jennifer Ruckman and Alex Bueno, both new and first-time mothers, invited us to their support group, Mommies Anonymous. One of my favorite moments was when the personal and hilarious group therapy session took a quick break for ‘mommy juice’ (better known as wine)!
• Members of the St. Mary Magdalene Church Choir rejoiced the theater’s sacred space with melodies influenced by jazz, musical theater, and secular favorites in Not Just a Church Choir.
• After taking time off for her new baby, voice teacher April Molina slipped right back into performing in William Jordan: Live! William and April are each other’s musical muse and inspiration, and it was a joy to see them perform together.
• The emotionally moving Veterans Initiative is a group of veterans from Chance Theater’s Veterans Speak Up program. These remarkable men shared their incredibly personal stories about their experiences in various wars, creating an unforgettable experience for everyone in the audience.
• Triple-threat Resident Artist James Michael McHale set his dancing and acting skills aside and gathered a kindred group of performers for Folk Tales of Whiskey, Love, and Murder. During this lively set, he raised extra money for the 24-hour Chance-a-thon by allowing the audience to buy shots for the band. Ten-dollar bills came floating down on stage as the musicians complied with passing the bottle of whiskey.
• Resident Artist and musical director Robyn Manion wrote a list of New Year’s goals, but the universe had other plans. Welcome to 2018: A Story of the Little Engine That Couldn’t was full of optimistic tales ranging from her car spending way too much in the shop to passionately buying a business of singers for hire.
• The Chance-a-thon explored the darker side of human nature when Crystal Phillips presented a staged reading of Nine. Not to be confused with the Tony Award-winning musical, this gritty one-act starts with two women chained to each other in a locked room. Despite some horrible events, the two ladies still manage to form a bond that offers one of them hope. Joined by Resident Artist Sherry Domerego and Glenn Koppel, Nine offered up a gripping 45 minutes at the Chance-a-thon.
• Resident Artist Laura Hathaway has been seen in many Chance productions, including last season’s Parade and The Secret Garden. However, her cabaret No Silver Medals was about all the roles that she didn’t get. The result was a funny and personal look into Laura’s journey.
• Anna Miles and Jonathan Fisher starred in the original one-act play, The Highest Shelf. She is a beautiful porcelain figurine prominently displayed on the top shelf; he is a dirty teddy bear who spent most of his life on the floor until he compelled her to come down from her perch.
• Erik Przytulski recruited a powerful group of musical theater artists to perform songs from a number of Erik’s original musicals. I don’t know about everyone else, but one of my favorite moments was seeing Maria (from The Sound of Music) facing off with a Xenomorph from Alien. No… seriously.
• Chance Theater Resident Artist Andrew Puente revealed his genuine self in Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself. The stage and screen actor revealed his sexual orientation in a place where he’s most comfortable — in front of an audience. With many family members and dear friends in the audience, he delighted us with a series of sexually ambiguous songs, and we surrounded him with love and acceptance.
• The last act on the Fyda-Mar was an encore presentation from the youngsters at HSMT Elite Performance group. In Musical Theater Review Part 2, plenty of moms, dads, and extended family showed their support for their offspring’s growing musical dreams.
• And wrapping it all up was the original musical, Meet on the Mountain, written by Chance Artists Katie Canavan and Taylor Stephenson. The story revolved around two groups of friends who have gone to a ski lodge to get away from the drama of the dating scene… and end up wanting to date each other (well, some of them at least). Combine that with a group of hotel employees who moonlight as an aspiring improv troupe, and the result was a delightful and invigorating end to an incredible weekend.

Before we say farewell to the 7th Annual Chance-a-thon, Chance Theater would like to thank from the bottom of our hearts the volunteers, performers, and patrons for making it another successful marathon weekend.

THANK YOU!

And we’ll see you next year!