Our Story
1999 - Wasted Wishes kicks off a full season of original works by local playwrights.
2000 - The Chance receives national attention for its daring world premiere of Robert Preston Jones' The Stroop Report - the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during World War II. Audience members flew in from around the country to see this exciting new production, directed by Oanh Nguyen.
2001 - The Chance participates in the Los Angeles Edge of the World Theater Festival with its production of Amanda DeMaio's Unrelenting Relaxation, named one of the best shows of 2001 by the Orange County Register and receives a "Best Ensemble" Theater Award from the OC Weekly.
2002 - The Chance produces two world premieres; receives Best of 2002 recognition from the OC Register for the performances in our first mounting of an American musical, Nine.
2003 - The Chance is commissioned by The Getty Museum to produce the world premiere of Antony Penrose's Lee Miller: The Angel and The Fiend, performed at The Getty and in Orange County; The Chance ended the year by moving into its new space, almost doubling the square footage.
2004 - The Chance wins multiple OC Weekly Theater Awards including "Best Ensemble-Oriented Theatre Troupe" and becomes one of the flagship Orange County theatres to join the Los Angeles Stage Alliance (LASA). The first annual fundraiser - A Class Act - is held at the historic Old Yorba Estate, home of Anaheim City Council Member Harry Sidhu.
2005 - The Chance wins an Arts Orange County Award for "Outstanding Arts Organization" and produces a world premiere adaptation of The Rover which is filmed as part of the KOCE television program "Storefront Theatre Live" leading to our production being listed as a historical new adaptation in the revised foreword to the 2006 publication of the play. Four Chance productions are named in the "The Year's Best Productions" by the Orange County Register including Chay Yew's Porcelain which was named as a 2005 GLAAD Media Award Outstanding Los Angeles Theater Nominee; numerous "Critic's Pick" designations by the Los Angeles Times and others.
2006 - The Chance receives a Los Angeles Times Critic's Choice for the national premiere of the docudrama of with their eyes: September 11th - The View from a High School at Ground Zero; produces our first annual Speak Up - Take a 'Chance' Youth Educational Program; serves as the sole Orange County participant in the national 365 Days/365 Plays project; wins numerous awards including the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Polly Warfield Award for Excellence and 11 Honorable Mentions for the Back Stage West Garland Awards.
2007 - The Chance creates Sustaining Membership program; is voted by the readers of the Orange County Register as the #2 Live-Theater Group in Orange County; Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen is named Outstanding Individual Artist by Arts Orange County.
2008 - The Chance is one of only two participating Orange County theaters in The Festival of New American Musicals (along with South Coast Repertory) with our production of The Brain From Planet X; produces the Orange County premiere of last year's Pulitzer Prize-winner Rabbit Hole; is voted "Best Theater Group" in Orange County by My Fox LA and "Best Small Theatre" by Orange Coast Magazine; our annual fundraiser moves to a larger venue, the OC Pavilion, to accommodate the demand for our headliners including Tony Award Nominees Laura Bell Bundy from Legally Blonde: The Musical and Kerry Butler from Xanadu as well as Eden Espinosa from Wicked.
2009 - The Chance kicks off a new decade of theater in Orange County with the West Coast Premiere of Jesus Hates Me, with a production grant from The Lear Family Foundation. In April, we will participate in the second annual Festival of New American Musicals, with the West Coast Premiere of The Girl, The Grouch, and The Goat, the new musical by Mark Hollmann, the Tony Award-winning composer of Urinetown. In an effort to reinvest in the next generation of theater artists, the Chance will be introducing new education programs - Weekend @ Play, The Write Stuff!, Girl Scout Workshops - and starting the NextGen Campaign, which will make going to the theater more affordable for full-time students.
