Theater and film have always been distant cousins of a sort; there are blood connections, but they run in different circles. It was always Brian Newell’s dream to bring them together for the same party. There are many examples of fine films that began life as plays and, more recently, stage musicals that started out as movies— often low-budget horror movies—but there are no examples of stage dramas that began life on-screen. Newell and Jim Book were at Troy High School together, film and theater geeks, when Newell first developed his notion of putting movies on stage.

Newell began as a sound designer for different theaters and was one of the founding members of STAGEStheatre, along with Brian Kojac, in 1992. Newell’s first directorial effort there, in ’94, was a show he adapted from the classic Hollywood western, The Magnificent Seven. The show was a hit and encouraged Newell to begin Staged Cinema Productions. His thought was, “In the future, for theater to continue to be popular, it needs to start putting movies on stage.”The new generation was not as familiar with classic theater as it was with movies. His premonition proved to be correct. The Maverick Theater, Newell and Book’s start-up is now celebrating its thirteenth year and has never skipped a beat. With the addition of partners Heidi Newell, Brian’s wife and primary costumer, and writer/actor/ director Nathan Makaryk, the Maverick has consistently produced successful sell-outs, one after another.

After two years of successful shows, they lost their lease at the Block. However, public demand inspired Newell to continue the Maverick in Fullerton. They quickly found a perfect space, big enough for two stages, but it took six months plowing through building ordinances to finally get the theater open—in June 2005—in the very space they still inhabit, just across the tracks from the downtown Fullerton train station. The Maverick features an art deco cabaret space with an actual raised stage, curtains, and a beer and wine bar, in addition to their main stage, a large black box theater. This way, they never need to have a dark weekend. Their opening show in Fullerton was Rocky Horror, a show they went on to produce four more times. They continued with classics like Hamlet and Three Musketeers, along with well-known films like Stalag 17.