Kelly Todd News

Colorado's acclaimed neo bluegrass quartet, Yonder Mountain String Band, will host the 6th Annual Harvest Music Festival at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas from October 13 - 16, 2011.

Long before the stage saw puppets having sex and Ugandans confronting Mormons, there was JERRY SPRINGER: THE OPERA, a joyously foul-mouthed stage musical that's as much of a hilarious guilty pleasure as its title suggests. The Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills is the latest American regional theater to take on this racy, over-the-top show. Due to popular demand--and, frankly, rightly so--this surreal musical's run has been extended through August 14. At the height of its popularity, Jerry Springer's eponymous TV program which inspired this reverent parody cornered the market in shocking reveals, loud on-stage brawls, and outrageous fringe parades. So the idea that this low-brow talk show-slash-circus sideshow has somehow been immortalized into a musical theater piece--specifically an Opera, perhaps the most high-brow of the Arts--attracts nothing less than amusing curiosity.

Met with some of Sondheim's harshest criticisms (a rarity within his top-notch career full of well-received hits), MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG-his musical play told in reverse-is quite a challenging piece to take in. As Chance Theater's current production (performing through March 7 in Anaheim Hills), theater co-founder and director Oanh Nguyen certainly lived up to his theater's name and took a respectable chance on mounting a musical that may not be everyone's cup of tea. Though the source material seems like it Merrily Trudges Along, Chance Theater's production is buoyed by a collective creative enthusiasm that's wonderfully palpable and exuberantly infectious all throughout the show's performance.

The Chance Theater is pleased to announce that it's 2009 production of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical has been nominated for six Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Awards.

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle has announced its nominations and special awards for excellence in Los Angeles and Orange County theatre for the year 2009. The 41st Annual Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards ceremony will take place on Monday, March 22 at the Colony Theatre, thanks to the generous donation of the Colony's management. The theatre is located at 555 N. Third Street, in Burbank.

The LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards Ceremony for the 2008/2009 theatre season took place Monday, January 11, 2010 at 7:30pm at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, home of the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities.

The LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards Ceremony for the 2008/2009 theatre season will take place Monday, January 11, 2010 at 7:30pm at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, home of the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities.

The LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards Ceremony for the 2008/2009 theatre season will take place Monday, January 11, 2010 at 7:30pm at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, home of the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities.

CHANCE THEATER CALENDAR LISTINGS: JANUARY - MAY 2010 JANUARY 29 - MARCH 7, 2010

ANAHEIM HILLS, CA-Orange County's Chance Theater presents a calendar line-up of upcoming theater offerings including LITTLE WOMEN - THE BROADWAY MUSICAL, THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES, Stephen Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, WELCOME HOME JENNY SUTTER.

THROUGH DECEMBER 27 LITTLE WOMEN - THE BROADWAY MUSICAL Based on the book by Allan Knee

The Chance Theater has received six 2009 Ovation Award nominations from Los Angeles Stage Alliance: five nominations for HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, and one nomination for Best Season, a new category whose other nominees include Geffen Playhouse, Rubicon Theatre Company, Troubadour Theater Company, and Fountain Theatre. They are the only theater from Orange Country to receive recognition by the awards committee.