Maverick Theater

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.

The King eventually ran from September 6, 2002, through December 22, 2002. 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.

Newell relocated to Fullerton, employing theatre designer Joseph Musil to give the theater an art deco look. 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, 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).

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