It's a wrap!
This past Memorial Day weekend (May 25-26, 2012) the first 24 hour theater marathon took place at the Chance Theater in an effort help bridge the gap between the loss of memberships and foundational support due to the weakened economic climate. We are proud to report that it was a smashing success!! Through the hard work and generosity of many, many people, we raised almost $27,000!! The Chance-a-thon, like a Walk-a-thon, had people from all over OC and LA raising funds by getting pledges to either watch 8-24 hours of continuous entertainment, perform as one of our acts, volunteer, or simply help us spread the word and solicit donations through our Razoo team fundraising page. Marathoners had a choice to raise funds and sit through 1, 2 or all three legs of the 24 hour marathon. For each leg they had to raise a minimum of $120 and we had 3 marathoners who made it through all 24 hours! A big congratulations to Sarah DuVal, Heather Young, and Guy Marr!! Now here’s a play by play…. Or act by act, if you will…. At 6:00pm, the first marathoners arrived to check-in and get orientated. After they turned in their donations and received their t-shirts and lanyards, they entered the theater and set themselves up for the long haul. The Chance green room was specially laid out with complimentary snacks and beverages to help keep our Marathoners nourished.
At 7:00pm, the first act “Liz Holt’s Super Amazing Mini Cabaret” took to the stage and you could feel the excitement and anticipation from everyone as the first melodic chords were played. And then we were off!! In all, we had 22 different acts in 24 hours and each of them were unique and entertaining. To see a full list of the performers, click here. Also that evening we had the Red Bull girls surprise us with some extra “wings” for our fading marathoners; Alice Wallace, Lily Bee and Justine Dorsey knocked everyone’s socks off in their 2 hour singer-songwriter concert; “d – featuring Lisa Zaradich” literally got people on their feet dancing; Ana Bomgaars, Tara Pitt, Noelle Juarez and Tere Mitchell stepped out of their character types to sing some great new renditions of popular musical theater songs; and readings of two new plays “Myth of the Cubicle” and “Princess Anonymous” left our marathoners wanting more! By 3am it was time for some of our marathoners to go home, some more to arrive, and the rest to get some more snacks, stretch their legs and get ready for the next 8 hour leg!
Early Saturday morning (3am) started with a new play “Ichabod and Katrina” adapted from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and had a spooky love story; two entertaining cabaret shows followed with the charming Natalie Elder in the “Jealousy Journals” and talented love birds Laura Hathaway and Matt Takahashi in “Three Years Later, a Musical Romance”; an incredible magic show by Naathan Phan, the world’s only Asian-Scottish magician; a funny new one-act with Chance resident artist Chance Dean in “Infidelity Among Friends”; a collection of scenes were presented by theatre students from Chance Board Member Georgia Well’s acting class at Cerritos College; and the final act of the leg closed with an on-your-feet, get down and dirty tap dance session in which the entire audience learned the finale from last year’s Ovation Award winning production Jerry Springer: The Opera! At this point, some of our marathoners had been going for 16 hours straight, and had one more leg to go! Luckily they had been winning some awesome prizes in the Marathoner Raffle! A few lucky folks went home with a private wine tasting, tickets to the Hollywood Bowl, restaurant certificates, cosmetics, and much more! Also hourly, Casey Long kept people in the loop throughout the event with his blog and twitter posts. Take a look at our Facebook page to see some of his videos. We love the ones during the 3rd leg as he gets more and more punchy! As we began the 3rd and final leg of the marathon, the 5 Hour Energy girls stopped by to give us those much needed drinks to get everyone through to the end! Good timing! Then Saturday afternoon brought us more cabaret acts by Cheryl Silverstein and Chance resident artists Jocelyn Brown and Erika Miller ended their sets with standing ovations; a student recital from some of OC’s most talented kids from Camryn Zelinger’s Lola Mae Performing Arts company; a moving one-act exploring life and death with some really amazing makeup in “Odilia”; quirky and entertaining music by Andrew Mauzy; a dramatic reading made up of Craigslist ads called “Missed Connections”; and even a Ms.Senior California pageant! Fun times were definitely had by all!
At 7pm, when Out of the Park Pizza sent over some much needed pizzas to celebrate the conclusion of the Chance-a-thon, we knew we had survived! Thank you Out of the Park, Togo’s, and Rubio’s Yorba Linda for sponsoring meals throughout the marathon for our volunteers and marathoners! As we all drank a beer and enjoyed our pizza, we stopped to take a moment to marvel at the accomplishment that we just made: A total of 32 hours from setup to strike had just concluded and it was time for everyone to take a very long nap! To close, we want to send out a big THANK YOU to our volunteers, staff, board, marathoners, fundraisers, donors, artists, and community for supporting this singular event. We can’t wait for next year!! Mark your Calendars…March 15-16, 2013!! It will be our 15th anniversary, you won’t want to miss it!!
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