Chance Theater Announces 2020 Resident Playwright And OTR New Works Schedule

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is delighted to announce its OTR New Works lineup for 2020. We will be presenting two staged readings from past and president Resident Playwrights, as well as a LAB Workshop production, and our first commissioned play, which is being written by our first Resident Playwright, Adam Szymkowicz. All performances will take place at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center.

Since 2011, our On The Radar (OTR) New Works Series has simultaneously provided a safe, collaborative environment for emerging playwrights and an opportunity for our patrons to "peek behind the curtain" and engage in brand new works-in-progress. Expanding into the OTR LAB Series in 2015, this workshop program takes a new play or musical into the next stage of development. The cast and director have a longer rehearsal period, additional workshop performances and the opportunity to continue rehearsals and make changes between each performance. Many plays and musicals from this series have gone on to receive world premieres all over the country, including Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club and the Chance.

Chance Theater will also have a new Resident Playwright whose work will be highlighted throughout the year. For 2020, our Resident Playwright will be Krista Knight. Previous resident playwrights include Lauren Yee (who was just included in American Theatre Magazine's lists for Top Ten Produced Playwrights and Top Ten Produced Plays... the latter included two of her plays), Marshall Pailet (whose musical Triassic Parq at the Chance won the Ovation Award for Best Musical), Jessica Huang (who just received the inaugural 4 Seasons Residency), Joanna Garner (whose play, The Orange Garden won the 2016 Keene Prize for Literature and the 2018 Izzy Award), and Nick Jones (two of his plays that were featured in our OTR Series received major world premieres at Lincoln Center and Manhattan Theatre Club). Over the years, the resident playwrights have returned time and again to have their work featured in both the OTR Series (Jenny Connell Davis' recent End of Shift 2006) and the Main Season (Lauren Yee's in a word and Marshall Pailet's Claudio Quest).

2020 Staged Readings

100 Heartbreaks

Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:30pm
on the Cripe Stage at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center

By 2018 Resident Playwright Joanna Garner

Sidle up to the bar at the Horseshoe Tavern where big-haired, sweet-voiced country darling Charlane Tucker is booked to play a set of barroom classics. She's not shy about the motor behind her cross-country tour: get her heart broken enough times to be sad enough to write the perfect country song. But her live show-with the Horseshoe's stellar house band-veers wildly off course when a past fling unexpectedly turns up. You have a front-row seat for a night of whiskey-fueled drama. A story about not giving up, despite the odds, 100 Heartbreaks a raucous send-up of - and love song to - the good ole' days of country music.

Single tickets go on sale November 29, 2019.

Shooter!

Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 7:30pm
on the Cripe Stage at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center

By 2020 Resident Playwright Krista Knight

Professor Leia is befuddled by the task of ushering undergrads into the dramatic principles of playwriting and life lessons simultaneously. When a student brings in a violent play, she suspects him of being a possible school shooter. As Leia's home life becomes more dangerous, she doubles down on her fear of the potential shooter.

Single tickets go on sale November 29, 2019.

LAB Workshop

Untitled New Krista Knight Play

July 9-12, 2020
on the Fyda-Mar Stage at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center

By 2020 Resident Playwright Krista Knight

Don't miss the newest creation by our 2020 Resident Playwright, Krista Knight. The script is so new that she is still working on it, which means your feedback will be even more imperative to its development.

Single tickets go on sale November 29, 2019.

Commissioned Work

Untitled Commissioned Adam Szymkowicz Play

October 6-11, 2020
on the Fyda-Mar Stage at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center

By 2011 Resident Playwright Adam Szymkowicz

Come see a LAB workshop performance of Chance Theater's first-ever commissioned play, which is being written by our first-ever resident playwright, Adam Szymkowicz.

Single tickets go on sale November 29, 2019.

2020 Resident Playwright

Krista Knight

"Krista's work is simultaneously funny and thought provoking," said Literary Manager James McHale. "Even as she explores darker subject matters she does so with mirth and fills her writing with energy that keeps you fully engaged and on the edge of your seat. She is very much interested in the fragility and power of language, how it's constructed and deconstructed, how we use it to create worlds and how it fails us. In her own words, she wants 'to give voice to the experiences of those who are quietly fighting to maintain/regain their lives and selves amongst exogenous change.' We are thrilled to support this emerging American voice and for our audiences to experience her particular command of language and the worlds and people she will introduce to us."

Krista 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 Hissitfit (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. Winner of the 2016 Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville. www.KristaKnight.com.

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