COMEDY NOTES : Holiday Festival to Make Rather Merry

The good folks at the Improv are taking a leading role in efforts to help the Brea Marketplace offer something above and beyond your run-of-the-mill mall Christmas.

Working with the TGI Friday’s restaurant, the city and others, Improv artistic director Michael Ari Wulffhart has helped forge the mall’s first Holiday Festival, to take place Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Stand-up comics Pablo Francisco and Todd Glass, the Passing Zone comedy juggling duo and the a cappella Alley Cats will be featured along with strolling stilt walkers, magicians and balloon artists, dancers and members of the Brea Olinda High School Marching Band.

“We wanted to create an arts identity,” Wulffhart said this week. “We went to see Studio City’s street festival, but it only had headliners. We went back to the Marketplace to put in a proposal for a street festival with national and local acts and then went through the audition process. All the acts have been asked to gear themselves to the holiday season.”

The performances will be spread over four main and six supplementary stages throughout the mall. Merchants will have schedules of who’s playing where and when.

If all goes according to plan, Wulffhart said, similar festivals will take place throughout the year, linked to various holidays. The Brea Marketplace is at East Birch Street and State College Boulevard. Information: (714) 283-2245.

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The Orange County Performing Arts Center has landed Elayne Boosler. But her fans better be patient: The show isn’t until Feb. 18. Tickets, however, go on sale Sunday at the center box office and all Ticketmaster ((714) 740-2000) outlets, $16 to $32.

The star of five Showtime cable specials, including the award-winning “Top Tomata,” once was a regular on the live circuit but since has turned to TV. Her writing credits include “The Rodney Dangerfield Special,” “Disney Goes to the Oscars” and the NBC series “The Shape of Things.” She also has given a command performance for the Queen of England.

The Security Risk improvisational troupe puts its reputation for quickness on the line at 7 p.m. Monday at the Camino Real Playhouse in San Juan Capistrano. The Irvine-based ensemble, which includes director Ron Ruhman, Susan Dinkel, Jerry Mabbott and Debby Cali, bills itself as 100% pure ad-lib. The playhouse is right off the Ortega Highway, at 31776 El Camino Real, across from the back entrance to the Swallows Inn. Information: (714) 502-1541.