Segerstrom Center’s Annual Off Center Festival

Segerstrom Center’s annual Off Center Festival returns from January 12 – 28, with an acclaimed line-up of creative, contemporary and often controversial artists and shows.

The Off Center Lounge in Leatherby’s Café Rouge also returns for Off Center Festival where you can mix and mingle with fellow audience members and Off Center artists. It’s rare opportunity to talk one-on-one with the creators and performers of these works and ask questions that oftentimes go unanswered. A special low-cost menu will be available starting at 9 p.m.

Single tickets are $25, and if you buy two productions, tickets are $20. If you buy three or more productions, tickets are just $15. (Choir! Choir! Choir! is free but a ticket is required to reserve a spot. Tickets can be purchased online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling 714.556.2787.

The festival will present:

THE BITTER GAME A potent and immersive solo work, The Bitter Game examines the relationship between a young man and his mother as each struggle to protect the other from that which seems inevitable. Based on playwright-actor Keith A. Wallace’s youth in Philadelphia, this multi-character performance explores the question of police agency and excessive force, the ripple effects of vicarious trauma in the communities of color, and the value of Black lives in this country.
Keith A. Wallace
January 12 & 13 at 8 p.m.
Samueli Theater

Mariachi Flor de Toloache Latin Grammy nominated Flor de Toloache has graced international stages from Asia to Europe and the U.S. and continues to win the hearts of both mainstream and traditional mariachi fans alike through their distinct vision and enlightened interpretation of traditional mariachi instruments. The band’s diverse ethnicities and musical backgrounds transcend culture and gender by forging new paths for mariachi music.
January 14 at 8 p.m.
Samueli Theater

Latin Standards Marga Gomez. n Latin Standards, Marga Gomez, the driven adult child of a Cuban entertainer, defies reason by producing a hipster comedy night at a struggling Latino drag queen club during San Francisco’s gentrification crisis. Between vivid portrayals of characters from her upbringing in 1960’s Manhattan to present day San Francisco, Gomez sardonically ponders the ballads (or Latin Standards) penned by her late father Willy Chevalier: a comedian/producer/entrepreneur and composer of dance tunes that reveled in jealousy and obsession.
January 19, 20 and 21 at 8 p.m.
Judy Morr Theater

Time of Women Belarus Free Theatre A story of three women at the forefront of the movement for a democratic Belarus with an unflinching dedication to the truth. Iryna Khalip, the PEN Pinter Prize-winning journalist, Natalya Radina, editor of the pro-human rights news site Charter 97 and political activist Nasta Palazhanka were all imprisoned at the time of the fraudulent presidential elections of 2010.
January 19, 20 and 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Studio Performance Space

Choir! Choir! Choir! Originating as a twice-weekly, drop-in singing event, Choir! Choir! Choir! is now an international singing phenomenon with a revolving membership of over 12,000, inviting non-professional singers to belt out pop hits with no audition required.
January 25 at 8:00 p.m.
Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall
FREE

Justin Vivian Bond Shows Up. Justin Vivian Bond is a trans-genre artist living in New York City, but in showbiz terms, Bond is a quintuple threat—a celebrated singer/songwriter, author, painter, performance artist and occasional actor.
Jan 27 and 28 at 8 p.m.
Samueli Theater