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CTG, Smokey Joe's Cafe lead Ovation nominees
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A round number, a new date, a whole bunch of nominees. And – if history holds true -- the prospect of a very long evening.
Give the L.A. theater community its Ovation. Heck, give them five.
The announcement of the nominees for the 2009-10 Ovation Awards – honoring local theater artists -- by the L.A. Stage Alliance will likely touch off the usual orgy of back slapping, congratulations and self promotion among nominees, as well it should since who else is going to toot the horn for live stage in this town?
Center Theatre Group _ which operates the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas Theatre _ leads the field with 25 nominations followed by the Geffen Playhouse with 14, the Troubadour Theater Company (12) and the El Portal Theatre with 10.
This year will be the Ovations 20th anniversary. The ceremony, which is historically held in November, moves to January this year. It will be Jan. 10, 2010 at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, home of Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities. Which, by the by, pulled in a whopping 1 Ovation nominee.
Who doesn’t love an award show with 28 categories? How about a show in which Katrina Lenk, who played porn star Linda Lovelace in “Lovelace: the Rock Opera” competes against Leslie Uggams’s Lena Horne of “Stormy Weather” and Lillias White playing herself in a Cy Coleman revue “The Best is Yet to Come” as well as four other actresses? If this thing clocks in even one minute under the length of “August: Osage County,” I will be struck dumb.
My hat is certainly off to the voters who have seen the bulk of the nominated plays (to say nothing of productions which were considered but were not nominated). And, yes, the voters got some of the nominees very right.
The Troubadour Theater Company, for example, which produces two spoof musicals per year, has earned every one of its 12 nominations and should indeed be up there in the new category Best Season, right along with the Geffen Playhouse, the Fountain Theatre (which figures to be a perennial in this category), the Rubicon Theatre and the Chance Theatre.
Kudos also to the once spotty El Portal which, even without a regular programmer or subscription season, is now bringing in a diverse assortment of entertainment. The theater’s 10 nominees are for a production of the musical revue “Smokey Joe’s Café.” That’s the most nominations for any single production, by the way.
Tied for second with seven nominations apiece are CTG’s production of the musical “9 to 5” which went on to open and close on Broadway, and “A Skull in Connemara,” the Martin McDonagh play produced by Stuart Rogers and Theatre Tribe.
“9 to 5” did not, however, make the cut for a best production of a musical – large theater nomination. The nominees in that category are the Troubie shows “Alice in One Hit Wonderland 2: Through the Looking Glass; and “As U2 Like it”; “Louis & Keely, Live at the Sahara” at the Geffen; “Smokey Joe’s Café” at the El Portal and “The Last Five Years” at East West Players.
The Troubies’ Matt Walker was nominated for four Ovations, two each for directing and two for ensemble acting. Cricket S. Myers took four nominations for sound design and Ann Closs-Farley three for costume design.
Having swept the Ovations from the smaller venue arena of the Sacred Fools, “Louis & Keely, Live at the Sahara” returns to try to reap awards anew in the large theater musical categories (the play transferred to the Geffen Playhouse).
For a complete list of the nominees, visit http://www.lastageblog.com/ovation-nominees/
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