CCAE Theatricals

These last 5 months have been an adventure to say the least. Since joining the CCAE family in July, CCAE Theatricals led by Jordan Beck and J. Scott Lapp were tasked with producing all the in-house productions at The Center. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, this meant immediately pivoting from indoor productions to outdoor shows for The Center’s Drive-In series at Westfield North County and then Cal State San Marcos. From August 15th - December 20th, CCAE Theatricals brought 8 d...ifferent productions to the Drive-In beginning with "The Rockin’ Retro Drive-In Show" with Christian Hoff & Travis Cloer. We followed that up with "The Best of Motown" and "The Piano Men". Next up was "When September Ends: The Music of Green Day" and then "The Rocky Horror Picture Show Drive-In Experience". We created an all new Beatles version of "The Piano Men" in November and finally in December, we closed out the Drive-In’s final two weekends with "Cocktail Hour: Songs of The Rat Pack" and "A Big Band Christmas"! All together, CCAE Theatricals’ productions employed nearly 40 individual performers, 35 musicians, 25 technicians and crew, 3 Musical Directors and multiple designers. Our shows alone brought in 1,350 cars totaling an estimated 3,000 audience members who were able to experience live entertainment from the safety and comfort of their vehicles. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who came out to support our shows! We would also like to thank our CCAE family, from administration to tech to front of house and marketing for all they did to help us make our Drive-In shows a success! To all of our amazing artists, we could not have done this without you! This year has not been easy for anyone, especially those who work in the Arts. We are so humbled to have been given this opportunity to present live performances during this time when for so many, that just isn’t possible. We look forward to seeing you all again soon in 2021. Until then, stay safe and healthy! We'll leave the light on for you!

Terron Brooks performs the Donny Hathaway Christmas classic in A BIG BAND CHRISTMAS. It’s not Christmas until you hear this song! Musical Director/Conductor Duane Benjamin with The D. Ben-jamin’ Band.

Meloney Collins, Terron Brooks, Laura Dickinson and Jim Graft take us down to New Orleans with this version of Little Drummer Boy arranged and conducted by Duane Benjamin and featuring The D. Ben-jamin’ Band. If you didn’t see A BIG BAND CHRISTMAS live this past weekend, this is the next best thing! You can download the single now on all music platforms (Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, Pandora, etc.) Watch the video below, then go show them some love and download the song! https://music.apple.com/us/album/drummer-boy/1546113724

at the Drive-In at Cal State San Marcos. December 19 & 20, 2020

We are excited to partner with the beautiful California Center for the Arts in Escondido, California! Stay tuned as we prepare our inaugural season! But for now, #stayhome <3

If you didn’t make it out to our COCKTAIL HOUR: SONGS OF THE RAT PACK show this last Sunday, here’s a little sample of what you missed. The incredible Matt Forbes performing Cole Porter’s classic I Get a Kick Out of You.

To everyone who came out last night dressed up, stripped down and ready to play: THANK YOU!!! Back to Transylvania for the time being! Happy Halloween! : Ken Jacques #therockyhorrorpictureshow #ccaetheatricals #theccae

OPEN SUBMISSIONS!

Thrilled to welcome Choreographer JILL GORRIE to the Creative Team for our upcoming drive-in concert of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT!! Jill Gorrie Rovatsos is an award-winning choreographer, director and educator. A graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (B.F.A. Dance), and San Diego State University (M.F.A. Musical Theatre), she is currently a lecturer of Musical Theatre history at SDSU and a highly sought after dance teacher/coach and ch...oreographer for venues and educational institutions around the world and locally at San Diego Musical Theatre, Moonlight Amphitheatre, North Coast Rep, San Diego’s School for Creative and Performing Arts, Mesa College, City College, Grossmont College and SDSU. For two decades, Jill called New York City home and had the honor of performing on the stages at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the St. James Theatre on Broadway, numerous regional theatres throughout the country, on Broadway national tours, across Europe and in film and television. Some of her many NYC teaching engagements included The American Musical and Dramatic Arts Academy (AMDA), CAP-21 and New York University. She has choreographed three NY premieres, including last summer’s Mambo Italiano at the Westchester Broadway Theatre. As resident director/choreographer, Jill worked with the international tour of Grease, an ongoing production with which she was affiliated for 20 years. She was responsible for restaging productions of Grease in cities such as Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Istanbul, and Byblos, Lebanon. Since moving to San Diego in 2012, Jill has choreographed over a dozen musicals and is the recipient of the prestigious Craig Noel Award, presented by the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle for her outstanding choreography in Hairspray, directed by J. Scott Lapp. Jill’s proudest accomplishment: mom to twins, Avery and Zachary.

Huge Thanks to BroadwayWorld for featuring our Rocky Horror Drive-In Experience this weekend on their Boards!! Get your tickets today for an exciting night of live entertainment AND the classic cult feature! It's gonna be ASTOUNDING!!!

Callbacks for JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT are still being finalized. We will be sending out emails on Thursday/Friday to those of you who we would like to see a little more from! Thank you for your submissions!

We had a BUSY weekend at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido rehearsing (safe and socially-distanced) for our upcoming Rocky Horror Picture Show Drive-In Experience!! Join this hilarious cast and some special guests on Friday, October 30th as we get a little bit spooky, and a little bit naughty!! Tickets available at https://artcenter.org/e/drive-in-rocky-horror-picture-show/

We are still taking Submissions for our upcoming Drive-In Concert of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT!! All the details below! PM us if you have any questions!

Less than TWO WEEKS until our Halloween Eve ROCKY HORROR LIVE Drive-In Experience hits the stage!! So much Antici....(SAY IT!!! ).....pation!! Meet @drewboudreau our Emcee for the night and get all the dirty details!!

ANNOUNCING OPEN SUBMISSIONS - NOW ACCEPTING! CCAE Theatricals will hold open submissions for their November 2020 in-concert production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". Direction & Staging: J. Scott Lapp; Musical Direction: JD Dumas. Rehearsals begin Monday, November 16, 2020; Show opens Friday, November 27 and runs through November 29th at the Drive-In at Cal State San Marcos. Take a rainbow ride through biblical Egypt wit...Continue reading

On this final day, we are thrilled to introduce you to the final cast members of CCAE Theatrical's upcoming production of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW DRIVE-IN EXPERIENCE that will play the Cal State San Marcos Drive-In series in October! Tickets:www.artcenter.org/event/drive-in-rocky-horror-picture-show Hosted by California Center for the Arts, Escondido, California State University San Marcos and CCAE Theatricals... There’s a light over at Frankenstein place! A newly engaged couple gets caught in a storm and stop at 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, complete with blond hair and a tan. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is based on a musical by the same name and stars Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick. The Rocky Horror Picture Show helped shape conditions of cult film’s transition from art-house to grind-house style. The film developed a cult following in 1976 at the Waverly Theatre in New York, which developed into a standardized ritual. The tradition will continue at the Drive-In this October; the film screening will come complete with a shadow cast, performing musical numbers live on stage, while they also play overhead on screen! October 30th at 8pm! Tickets are available Now!! DENNIS TONG (Frank-N-Furter) is thrilled to be back in the heels of the doctor once again! Dennis has had the absolute pleasure of entertaining theater audiences as Frank N Furter in multiple productions around Orange County for almost 2 decades. Other past favorite roles include Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the Emcee in Cabaret and Bobby in A Chorus Line. Film/TV: Donte in A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper.