The Chance Theater - Biloxi Blues

Max Williams (Director)

Max most recently served as associate director for the Paper Mill Playhouse production of Summer and Smoke. His New York directing credits include the premieres of Bushwhackin' (Primary Stages), Right as Ron (Bank St. Theatre), The Kingdom and Removing the Head (both at Manhattan Theatre Source). Regional credits include Medea in Jerusalem (Capital Repertory Theater), Blithe Spirit, Private Lives, Educating Rita, Moon Over Buffalo (all for Pioneer Valley Theater), Ways and Means (Monomoy Theatre), Lysistrata (TheatrEclipse), Moonchildren (Bitter Truth Theatre), and work for Hartford Stage, the Cleveland Play House, Pasadena Playhouse, and the Alley Theatre. He has been a Guest Artist/Lecturer at Ohio University and the N.Y.U. Graduate Music Theatre Writing Program, has participated in the Lincoln Center Director's Lab and Director's Lab West, and has served as assistant director on Broadway, for Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Philadelphia Theatre Co., and the A.R.T. For Granddad.[top]

Masako Tobaru (Set Designer)

Masako has been a proud Company Member for 2 years. Recently, she has designed the sets for I Love You, You're Perfect., Inventing Van Gogh, Anaheim Home Companion, The Lying Kind, The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, with their eyes: September 11th - The View from a High School at Ground Zero (LA Times Critic's Choice) and Never In My Lifetime (Back Stage West Critic's Pick). Masako previously designed lighting for The Eight, A Christmas Story, The Rover, Closer Than Ever (LA Times Critic's Choice), It's A Wonderful Life - The Musical, and Rodgers & Hammerstein's A Grand Night for Singing. She has also stage managed Into The Woods, The Last 5 Years, Cabaret, and The Eight. Masako received a Kennedy Center award nomination for her lighting design for Medea at Concordia University, Irvine, where she received her BA in Theatre and Communications. Masako would like to thank her family for their support, and her friends for their understanding. And, as always, a special thanks to Oanh, Erika, Casey, Alex and Jeff for everything they do to help her succeed. [top]

Christian Lemay (Lighting Designer)

Christian is excited to be designing his first shows at The Chance. He is currently a senior at the University of California Irvine, majoring in Drama. Previous designs include What The Rabbi Saw (UCI), Catholic School Girls (UCI), and Big River (The Aerospace Players). Credits as Assistant Lighting Designer include Judgment at Nuremburg (International City Theatre), Measure for Measure (Shakespeare Orange County), and Man of La Mancha (El Camino College). Many thanks go out to the fabulous production staff and cast at The Chance for helping make these shows such a success. [top]

Casey Long (Sound Designer)

Casey has been a part of The Chance Theater since 1999, and he will never live down his procrastination. Previous sound design credits here at The Chance include The Lying Kind (Back Stage West Honorable Mention: Sound Design), Coyote On a Fence (Back Stage West Critic's Pick, Chancie Award: Best Sound Design), with their eyes: September 11th - The View from a High School at Ground Zero (LA Times Critic's Choice), and Never In My Lifetime (Back Stage West Critic's Pick). He would like to thank both directors for their unique visions of these shows, and his fiancee, Alex, for keeping him sane during his all-nighters. [top]

Erika C. Miller (Costume Designer)

Erika is a proud member and co-founder of The Chance Theater alongside her talented husband, actor/director Oanh Nguyen. Her favorite theater roles include (starting with most recent) I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, Into The Woods, Rodger's & Hammerstein's A Grand Night for Singing, Cabaret (Garland Award Honorable Mention - Best Actress and Back Stage West Critic's Pick), Closer than Ever (LA Times Critic's Choice), Goodnight Children Everywhere (OC Weekly Award Nominee - Best Ensemble and Best Production), Company (OC Weekly Award Nominee - Best Musical and Best Ensemble), The Fantasticks, Lee Miller: The Angel and the Fiend (OC Weekly Award-winner), and As You Like It. As The Chance's Resident Costume Designer, Erika has designed costumes for Coyote on a Fence, A Christmas Story, Cabaret, and Porcelain among others. [top]

Tanae Beyer (Stage Manager)

Tanae is a proud Company Member of the The Chance Theater, and her previous Chance credits include stage managing A Christmas Story, running lights for The Last 5 Years and assistant stage managing Into The Woods. She is a graduate of Concordia University, Irvine, with a B.A. in Communications and Theatre. While at Concordia, Tanae was involved in over 24 productions including stage managing and/or assistant directing Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, Ruthless!, Seussical: The Musical, and All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. She also made her directorial debut with The Last Night of Ballyhoo at Concordia. [top]

Janelle Asti (Follow Spot Operator)

Janelle is currently attending California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she is studying Aerospace Engineering with a Minor in Theater. She is also a member of Alpha Psi Omega, an honorary fraternity. Janelle is working at Knott’s Berry Farm as a Tech for Stage and Screen Production. In the last two and a half years, she has worked on several plays including Bondage and Little Shop of Horrors. She has also spent about a year in North Hollywood working on Doubting Thomason. This is Janelle’s first show at The Chance Theater, and she is very excited and thankful to have an opportunity to work with such great people. [top]

Glenda Morgan Brown (Dialect Coach)

Glenda began her dialect coaching career by assisting actors in shows she was directing, and then shows directed by her husband, David Colwell, and it grew from there. Some of the shows she has coached are Hay Fever, Don't Dress for Dinner, Dangerous Obsession, and Shadowlands (all Standard British); The Sum of Us (Australian); Taking Sides (German); and, Dracula, requiring no less than seven different accents! Glenda's previous work with Chance includes Cabaret, The Lying Kind, Inventing Van Gogh, and the challenging Porcelain, requiring seven distinct British Isles sounds. Glenda is also a professional actress, seen last season as the Vice President's wife on "Commander in Chief", and co-stars on "Close to Home", "The West Wing", "Boston Legal" and "Monk". She's happy to be back with The Chance Theater "family". [top]

Bryan Barton (Don Carney)

Bryan is honored to be a part of such an incredible production. As a Company Member, he has been involved in a number of productions at The Chance. He most recently appeared as Joshua Meyer in Anaheim Home Companion. Other roles include Big Love (Oed), Cabaret (Ernst), and FIG: R.O. (Dr. Bartolo). Technical work includes Sound Design for Big Love, Company and Tape. Bryan would like to thank the talented cast and crew for their hard work and dedication, Max for the opportunity, and Clarissa for her love and support. He would like to dedicate this performance to every soldier who risked their lives for us in WWII. In a time of uncertainty, it was those brave men who literally saved the world. [top]

David J. Dalton (Sgt Merwin J. Toomey)

David's debut performance was in Bali Abba and The Thieves of Barbose, at the Costa Mesa Civic Play House when he was ten. From then on he was hooked; acting throughout high school and college. From there, convinced that he should get a "real" job, he found his way into several "really bad" jobs before waking up one day and realizing that he had walked away from the one thing he loved to do most. After a 17- year hiatus, David returned to the stage last summer. Since then, he has been seen playing Oberon and Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream, at the Irvine Community Theater, Adam and Corin in As You Like It, at the San Juan Capistrano Shakespeare Festival, and Vincent Van Gogh in Inventing Van Gogh at The Chance. And he would like to say a special thank you to his wife, Marie for being so loving and supportive.[top]

A.J. Gutierrez (Eugene Morris Jerome)

A.J. is thrilled to be returning to The Chance. Past credits include Sordid Lives (Earl "Brother Boy" Ingram), for which he earned the 2005 Cappie Award for Best Comic Actor in a Play, as well as Into The Woods (Back Stage West Critic's Pick, Garland Award Honorable Mention - Best Ensemble) and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, both here at The Chance. Thanks to his family, the cast and crew, Max, Tanae, Masako, and Oanh. [top]

Jonathan Howard (Roy Selridge)

After a two year hiatus from acting, Jonathan is excited to be a part of The Chance's production of Biloxi Blues. This is Jonathan's first production with The Chance Theater and he hopes it is not his last. His previous credits include Jason in Medea, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and most recently, Lucentio in El Camino Playhouse's production of The Taming of the Shrew. He would like to thank everyone who comes out to support him, his family, his friends, and of course, his fellow ERACers! [top]

Michael Irish (Arnold Epstein)

Zing! This is Michael's thirteenth production with The Chance Theater. Previously he was seen onstage in Oedipus At Colonus, Hang Up, Company, It's A Wonderful Life, The Eight: Reindeer Monologues (2004 and 2006), Cup of Ha-Ha 2, The Diary of Anne Frank, Fig: R.O., Cabaret, The Lying Kind, and in the booth for Hot 'N' Throbbing. He has also performed at Rude Guerilla Theater, The Laguna Playhouse, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, The Curtis Theater, South Coast Repertory, and toured with Shakespeare by the Sea. He popped up in heaps of shows at U.C. Santa Cruz, where he earned his BA in theater in 2003. [top]

Staci Johnson (Rowena)

Staci has been acting both professionally and for community and college theater for the past 15 years. She is originally from Sacramento and in 2006 she was named Best Leading Actress in a Musical by the Sacramento Theater Alliance for her role in I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. She has also received awards for Directing including the 2004 Elly Award for directing Noises Off. Staci has a B.A. in Television Production from San Francisco State and a M.A. in Communication Studies from UC Davis. She is excited to be acting here in Orange County and hopes to make The Chance her new theater home. [top]

Michael Marinaccio (Joseph Wykowski)

Michael recently moved to Los Angeles from New York where he performed off-Broadway in the original cast of One Man's War. Some of his other credits include Paris in Romeo and Juliet, Hastings in Shakespeare in the Parking Lot's production of Richard III and Snug in Pulse Ensemble Theatre's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Michael also appeared in some independent films such as "The Weekend," "People in Monday," "I'm a Writer," and "Ooze." He received his BFA in acting at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. [top]

Justin McCaffrey (James Hennessy)

Justin is honored to be working here at The Chance among this wonderful company of artists. Some of his favorite roles have been Orlando in As You Like It (Montana Shakespeare), the Commissioner in Lysistrata (Theatreclipse), and Mr. Topper at the Hartford Stage in A Christmas Carol. Justin would like to thank Max Williams for the chance to work with him after 6 long years. He would also like to thank his parents, friends and Rhena for their continued support. Justin is a graduate of The Hartt School for Theater with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
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Sarah Moreau (Daisy Hannigan)

As a proud Company Member of The Chance Theater, Sarah is so happy to be a part of this production. Sarah has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater from Stephens College in Columbia, MO. Previous Chance credits include Into The Woods (Back Stage West Critic's Pick) and with their eyes: September 11th - The View from a High School at Ground Zero (LA Times Critic's Choice). She would like to thank Max, the cast, and company for this fantastic experience. [top]