Photo Flash: Sheila Callaghan's ELEVADA Opens This Saturday

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is excited to announce the West Coast premiere of Elevada. This romantic comedy is written by Sheila Callaghan and directed by Nicholas C. Avila. Elevada will run from May 4 - June 3 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Fyda-Mar.

What kind of tango partner are you looking for - one that will glide with you above all of life's messiness, or someone who will stay with you on the ground? It's only their first date, but Ramona and Khalil's time is already running out. Ramona has cancer. Khalil is selling his identity to a corporation. Typical relationship stuff. While they both seem set to vanish off this earth, they unexpectedly find themselves preparing to give love one more try. This warm, witty, and wise romantic comedy asserts that even in the potentially hazardous, high stakes game of love and relationships... the risk is worth it if it means finding your favorite dancing companion.

Do we fear being alone or do we fear not being alone?

As you may suspect from a Sheila Callaghan "romantic comedy," there is a lot more going on in Elevada besides meet-cutes and clever one-liners. Callaghan uses her acerbic wit (seen by television audiences on shows like Shameless and Casual) to take a deep-dive into modern day romance -- is it easier or harder to make a connection in a world where people increasingly look up less and less from their smartphone? With the right data plan, the world is at your fingertips. But how well do you really know it?

Callaghan's play dives deeper than romance, and asks us to take a hard look at ourselves. Are we who other people see? Are we what we do? Or what we don't do? Is our identity 1's and 0's in a computer, a commodity to be purchased by a corporation, or ... is it more than all of that? In Elevada, both Ramona and Khalil know who they are. They know what they want, and they know what will happen next... or so they think. When romance enters into any equation, unwanted truths can reveal themselves to complicate our lives. And, sometimes, it's so totally worth it.

All photos by Chance Theater

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