Virtual Intensive Workshops
Learn more about Acting, Directing, Design, and Playwriting from top-tier artists, including a Tony Award nominee, multiple Ovation Award winners, and Chance Theater Resident Artists.
Choose your workshop:
DESIGNING:
COSTUME DESIGN
with Bradley Lock (bios below)
Bradley illustrates how costume design is an essential tool that breathes life into the characters and reinforces the play’s concept.
DESIGNING:
SCENIC DESIGN
with Kristin Campbell (bios below)
How does the set reflect the characters that inhabit it? Kristin discusses the role of the set designer in telling the story.
ACTING:
DEMYSTIFYING SHAKESPEARE
with Aaron McGee (bios below)
Does approaching Shakespeare seem daunting? Join Aaron as we demystify the process of tackling the Bard!
DIRECTING:
A DIRECTOR’S TAKE: REHEARSALS
with Jocelyn A. Brown (bios below)
In the second part of this two-part intensive, Jocelyn takes us into her craft of bringing a play to life, from the first read to opening night.
ACTING:
TACKLING THE SCRIPT
with Amanda Zarr (bios below)
How does the actor deconstruct the words on the page? Amanda will take us through how an actor connects to the written word to breathe life into them.
PLAYWRITING:
THE BIRTH OF THE IDEA
with Krista Knight (bios below)
How does a playwright tackle their initial idea for a play? How does it do from their head to the paper? Krista Knight will share her insight as to the playwright’s process in the beginnings of writing a play.
ACTING
CRAFTING THE CHARACTER
with James McHale (bios below)
Where do characters come from? James takes us through the art of creating a character from the words to the stage.
ACTING:
APPROACHING THE MUSICAL THEATER AUDITION
with Stephanie Inglese (bios below)
In this fun intensive, Stephanie helps us learn how to put our best foot forward (figuratively and literally) in the world of the Musical Theater Audition.
DESIGNING:
SOUND DESIGN
with Cricket Myers (bios below)
What is the sound designer’s job in telling a story? Cricket shares her approach to creating soundscapes that help further the world of the play.
DESIGNING:
LIGHTING DESIGN
with Andrea Heilman (bios below)
How can lights bring us into the emotions of a story? Andrea Heilman shares with us how the job of the lighting designer isn’t merely just to help us see the actor. Learn more about the principles of…
PLAYWRITING:
APPROACHING ARISTOTLE: THE “RULES” OF THEATER AND HOW TO BREAK THEM
with Jenny Connell Davis (bios below)
What is theater, exactly? What is GOOD theater? A couple of thousand years ago, a guy named Aristotle tried to nail down an answer to those questions, based on the plays around him at the time….
ACTING:
THE ACTOR AND THE CAMERA
with Andrew Puente (bios below)
Join Andrew Puente to explore the basics of acting for the camera and creating the perfect self-tape.
Instructor Bios
Jocelyn A. Brown
Jocelyn A. Brown has been a Chance Resident Artist since 2001 and Associate Artistic Director since 2011. Chance directing highlights include: Lizzie (Ovation Award winner: Best Musical, Ovation Award nominee: Best Direction of a Musical), Good People (Ovation Recommended, Chancie Award for Outstanding Direction), in a word (Best in OC by The Orange Curtain Review), The Big Meal, various new works through Chance’s On The Radar series, Evita (Chancie Award for Best Production), Never In My Lifetime (Back Stage Critic’s Pick), The Cherry Orchard (OC Weekly nomination: Best Direction), and Big Love. Jocelyn received an Outstanding Individual Artist nomination in 2003 by Arts Orange County.
Kristin Campbell
Kristin Campbell is an Orange County-based scenic and projections designer. In 2018, she served as the scenic designer for Goosebumps the Musical and Elevada, as well as the projection designer for Emma at the Chance. Recently, she has designed for A Noise Within, Couerage Theatre Company, Chapman University, CSU-Fullerton, and Riverside City College. Kristin also serves as the Managing Director of The Wayward Artist, a theatre company in Santa Ana. The Wayward Artist’s mission centers around finding an artistic home for creative storytellers and artists.
Jenny Connell Davis
Jenny Connell Davis is a proud member of the Chance Theater family, where she was a resident playwright in 2016. Her plays have been produced in small theaters around the country, and developed at places like Ars Nova, The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and The Playwrights’ Center, where she is an Affiliated Artist. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin playwriting program and the University of Chicago, and makes her living writing things for screens.
Andrea Heilman
Andrea Heilman is a Los Angles based Scenic and Lighting Designer who has an accomplished freelance career that spans over 15 years. She loves working on a wide range of projects from art directing independent films and web series to designing site-specific theater and more traditional work. Her set design for Anna in the Tropics at the Jungle Theater was selected to be featured in TD&T’s Design Issue, Summer 2018. Some of her favorite designs include Cymbeline at California Lutheran University where she is the head of Design and Production; The Brothers Size with Pillsbury House at the Guthrie Theatre; The Arsonists at The American University in Cairo; Cloud Tectonics and Accidental Death of An Anarchist when she returned to Macalester College; Agnes Under the Big Top, A Cool Drink A Water, and Red Ink with Mixed Blood; The Transdimensional Couriers Union and Robots vs. Fake Robots with Walking Shadow. You can see nice pictures, ask questions, and just look around at AndreaTheater.com.
Stephanie Inglese
Stephanie Inglese performed in Chance Theater’s production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights back in 2014 as a member of the ensemble and the production’s dance captain. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Musical Theatre from California State University, Fullerton, Stephanie performed across Southern California with theatre companies such as 3D Theatricals (Tiger Lily, Peter Pan), The Candlelight Pavilion (Jekyll and Hyde; Evita), Performance Riverside (Vanessa, In the Heights), and more. Stephanie went on to tour the U.S. and Canada with the National Tour of Mamma Mia! before eventually making her move to New York City. Stephanie now auditions regularly in NYC and performs with theatre companies across the country, with favorite credits including Anita in West Side Story (Mill Mountain Theater, VA), Stephanie Mangano in Saturday Night Fever (Derby Dinner Playhouse, IN), and u/s Carla in In the Heights (Mason Street Warehouse, MI).
Krista Knight
Krista Knight is a Juilliard School Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program Fellow (2016-2018), Page 73 Playwriting Fellow (2007), MacDowell Fellow (2008), Shank Playwriting Fellow at the Vineyard Theatre (2011-2012), and Vanderbilt Writer-in-Residence (current). Her work includes Lipstick Lobotomy (2019 Kilroys List), Don’t Stop Me (new teen musical with Dave Malloy), Kirk at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt (NYTW’s Summer Residency, Vineyard Theatre reading series, Playwrights Foundation Rough Reading, Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse/ MacDowell Benefit), Primal Play (New Georges, Playwrights Center of MN), the punk rock adaptation of Medusa HISSIFIT (Cradle Theatre, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre), Salamander Leviathan (Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, Ars Nova Ant Fest, Fingerlakes Musical Theatre Festival, Inkwell, KCACTF Musical Theatre Award from the Kennedy Center for best book), Doomsurfing (Parkside Lounge, UCSD), SELKIE (Williamstown Theatre Festival, Dutch Kills), and 17 plays and musicals for young audiences. Commissions include the script for a ride at Tokyo Disney, The Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, The Assembly, Live Girls!, and The Case Western Reserve University School of Biomedical Engineering. Krista has been in residence at La Napoule Art Foundation, Tofte Lake, The Orchard Project, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Page 73’s Summer Residency at Yale, Santa Fe Art Institute, UCROSS, Yaddo, and The MacDowell Colony.
Bradley Lock
Bradley Lock has costume designed a number of productions with Chance Theater. He previously designed the costumes for Fun Home, A Chorus Line, ROOMS: a rock romance in January of 2012, Lysistrata Jones, and Maple and Vine in 2014, Hairspray, Big Fish, and Goosebumps, The Musical. Bradley received his MFA in costume/scenic design from CSUF in 2012 and is currently teaching at Cerritos and Cypress College. He also enjoys freelancing all over SoCal.
Aaron McGee
Aaron McGee is a Resident Artist of the Chance with previous credits including: The Little Prince, The Legend(s) of Sleepy Hollow and The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. Stage credits include Henry V (Little Fish Theater), Shakespeare in Love (South Coast Rep.), Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure (Glendale Center Theatre), A Christmas Carol (South Coast Rep), The Giver (Laguna Playhouse), Intergalactic Adventures (Pacific Symphony), Three Musketeers (Palos Verde Perf. Arts), Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Romeo and Juliet.
James McHale
James McHale is a Resident Artist at Chance Theater where he directed A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. Recently, James wrote and directed three storytelling concerts for Pacific Symphony including Beethoven: Trials to Triumph, Intergalactic Adventures, and A Dream of Tchaikovsky: Symphonic Storytelling. Other directing credits include the premiere of Comedy of ERRORS at American Coast Theater Company, and Two Rooms at California State University Long Beach. As an actor, James’ credits include Once at Lamb’s Players’ Theater (San Diego Theater Critics Circle Award for Best Musical), Much Ado About Nothing at The Old Globe, and Middletown here at Chance (2017 Stage Scene LA Award for Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role).
Cricket Myers
Cricket Myers received a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Nomination in 2011 for her design of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. in 2018, The League of Professional Theatre Women honored Cricket with the Ruth Morely Award for Theatrical Design. She has been nominated for 22 Ovation Awards between 2007 and 2018 and was named Sound Designer of the Year multiple times by StageSceneLA and won the LADCC Kinetic Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatrical Design in 2015.
Andrew Puente
Andrew Puente holds a BA in Theater Arts from Cal State Long Beach and since transitioning to on-camera work has guest-starred on shows like NCIS, Hawaii Five-0, and Henry Danger. He can currently be seen in a nationally running Cox Communications commercial. A former Resident Artist of the Chance, subscribers might recognize Puente for his roles in Claudio Quest (Luis), Dogfight (Eddie Birdlace), or – MOST notably – his 2-year run as Lionel the Shark in Fancy Nancy the Musical. Puente has also appeared in the Chance Theater’s OTR series (Creep, Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying). andrewpuente.com | @andrew_puente
Amanda Zarr
Amanda Zarr is a professional actor, director, and adjunct theatre professor. She earned her BFA from Chapman University, her MFA from the prestigious PATP program at the University of Washington, and worked with Shakespeare Orange County as a company member for over 10 years. Amanda has also been a guest artist with Ophelia’s Jump, Pensacola Shakespeare Company, American Coast Theater Company, Need Theater of Los Angeles, and Santa Fe University of Art and Design where she worked with Jon Jory and Robert Benedetti. Her work with Chance Theater includes The Vandal, In a Word, and Good People. She teaches at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the California School of the Arts-San Gabriel, and Chapman University.