Altadena Resident Starring in Latest 'A Noise Within' Production

Long-time Altadena resident and actress Jill Hill's commute is about to get a little shorter.

Hill, who has been in the A Noise Within theater  group for 17 years , is starring in the group's production of Tennessee Williams' "The Eccentricities of the Nightingale," which opened over the weekend.

The group, which does six productions a year, ranging from the Classics to Shakespeare to American modern playwrights, will be finishing up its Spring season in its current Glendale location and relocating to East Pasadena in 2011.

For Hill, it's a great chance to perform closer to her adopted home of Altadena, where she has lived for over 15 years.

"It's so exciting," Hill said. "I was just at the site today, and I can't wait!"

A Noise Within is what is called a rotating repertory group: it uses the same group of actors season after season. Rotating repertory groups that focus on classic plays from throughout history tend to be rare, Hill said, with most organizations opting to bring in new actors and actresses for new productions.

The current play, Eccentricities, was written by Tenessee Williams, who also wrote the more famous "A Streetcar Named Desire."

The Noise Within team describes the play as the "story of Alma Winemiller, who struggles to dim the unique glow of her soul while trapped in the cultural suffocation of a backwater Mississippi hamlet.

Blessed (or cursed) with a lyric sense of being, she bears a heavy cross of unrequited, unattainable love, and her exquisite individuality is left vulnerable to the destructive forces of small-town intolerance."

Hill plays Mrs. Winemiller, Alma's mother, who is mentally challenged.

A Noise Within is more than just a theater company, according to Hill.  The group also has classes and other community activities which will be much more accessible to Altadena residents once the theater company relocates.

The new site is at the corner of Sierra Madre Villa and Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena, on the same property as the Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line Station.

Theater attendees will be able to park at the garage on the property, and the new theater will be part of the continued development of a mixed commercial and residential project at the site.

It's a great change got Hill, who has been living in Altadena through the group's entire existence.  She had previously been splitting her time between New York and Southern California trying to make it as an actress.  She'd be in L.A. for TV pilot season and than to New York auditioning on Broadway.

All that changed when she was asked to come audition for the newly-created A Noise Within group.

"I had done the classics, a lot of Shakespeare and others and that wasn't so easy to find," Hill said.

See the Play:

March 19 - May 28, Wednesdays through Sundays 

234 South Brand Boulevard, Glendale

Ticket website

Ticket prices: $46 - Friday, Saturday, Sunday matinee.  $42 - Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday Evening.  Discounts available for schools and groups of 10 or more.