A Noise Within to end two decades in Glendale with retrospective show

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A Noise Within will bid farewell to its Glendale home this weekend with a benefit show featuring scenes from plays that the classical repertory company staged there during its first two decades.

‘A Noise Within: A Retrospective,’ which will run Friday through Sunday, will be the troupe’s final production in the ‘20s-era former Masonic Temple that it has occupied on Brand Boulevard. It will open its 2011-12 season this fall in a theater complex it is building in Pasadena.

‘We sat and thought, ‘How do you distill all the highs of doing what we were doing as well as all the challenges along the way?’ ‘ says Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, A Noise Within’s co-founder and co-artistic director with her husband, Geoff Elliott. ‘We kept coming back to what it all emanates from -- the work onstage.’

The retrospective will start with the company’s first offering, Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet,’ and end with Ionesco’s ‘The Chairs,’ which closed in May. In between, says Rodriguez-Elliott, will be plenty of the Bard, ‘American classics,’ and ‘everything from ‘Tartuffe’ to ‘Ubu Roi’ to ‘Man of La Mancha.’

‘We’ll also have stories about some interesting or important moments and behind-the-scenes things,’ she says. ‘It will be like a mini-play that tracks our performance history from 1991 to the present day.’

Tickets cost $100. The event will include the show, a champagne-and-dessert reception and a silent auction and sale of works by the late James Moore, who photographed many A Noise Within rehearsals. Proceeds will benefit the company’s education programs and theater operations.

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Theater review: ‘The Chairs’ at A Noise Within

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-- Karen Wada