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The Maverick Theater is a storefront theater in the city of Fullerton, California, in Orange County. The theater was founded in 2002 by Artistic Director Brian Newell. Needing a venue to run his Elvis Presley musical The King, Newell rented a space at The Block at Orange, formerly occupied by Mars Music. Finding a large "M" cemented into the floor, Newell arrived at Maverick as the name of the theater. [1]
Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 135,161.
Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 3,010,232, making it the third-most populous county in California, the sixth-most populous in the United States, and more populous than 21 U.S. states. Its county seat is Santa Ana. It is the second most densely populated county in the state, behind San Francisco County. The county's four largest cities by population, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, and Huntington Beach, each have a population exceeding 200,000. Several of Orange County's cities are on the Pacific Ocean western coast, including Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente.
Elvis Aaron Presley, commonly known as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
The King eventually ran from September 6, 2002, through December 22, 2002. [1] The theatre also staged productions of Amadeus and The Rocky Horror Show . However, The Block at Orange proved a difficult host for the theatre, forcing them to move to a different location to make room for a bowling alley, then cutting their square footage in half, placing a candy store next to the space. Finally, in June 2004, the Maverick Theater was forced to leave and was replaced with a pet store. [1]
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer, which gives a highly fictionalized account of the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. First performed in 1979, Amadeus was inspired by a short 1830 play by Alexander Pushkin called Mozart and Salieri.
The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien. A humorous tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the late 1940s through to the early 1970s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, a sort of Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man named Rocky Horror, complete "with blond hair and a tan".
Newell relocated to Fullerton, employing theatre designer Joseph Musil to give the theater an art deco look. [1] The new venue had two stages—a cabaret stage for musicals, and a black box stage for larger-scale plays. The new space opened in June 2005 with a revival of The Rocky Horror Show. Since then, The Maverick has become known for its Staged Cinema Productions, in which they stage adaptations of popular and lesser-known films, including Night of the Living Dead (an annual Halloween production), Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (an annual Christmas production). Other Maverick productions have included Shakespeare ( Hamlet , Romeo and Juliet ), comedy ( Noises Off , Father of the Bride , Below the Belt and Picasso at the Lapin Agile ), drama ( Angels in America , Stalag 17 , A Few Good Men , One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , The Manchurian Candidate , The Hobbit , American Way , Frost/Nixon, Long Day's Journey into Night and the West Coast premiere of Rising Water ), and musicals ( Cabaret , Reefer Madness , The Full Monty , Little Shop of Horrors , Giant Green Lizard! The Musical , Urinetown , Rent , The Producers , Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical , The Wedding Singer , "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's SUPERMAN!" and Chicago ).
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. It is mainly distinguished by the performance venue, which might be a pub, a restaurant or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or drinking, does not typically dance but usually sits at tables. Performances are usually introduced by a master of ceremonies or MC. The entertainment, as done by an ensemble of actors and according to its European origins, is often oriented towards adult audiences and of a clearly underground nature. In the United States striptease, burlesque, drag shows, or a solo vocalist with a pianist, as well as the venues which offer this entertainment, are often advertised as cabarets.
A black box theater is a simple performance space, that varies in size, and is usually a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space is used to create a flexible stage and audience interaction. The black box is a relatively recent innovation in theatre.
Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film written, directed, photographed and edited by George A. Romero, co-written by John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in western Pennsylvania, which is besieged by a large and growing group of "living dead" monsters.
