Jun. 30, 2010 - Issue #767: The Bestest of Edmonton 2010
Sterlings round-up
A show about modern moral courage and a toe-tapping love letter to musical theatre took top honours at the 23rd annual Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards on Monday night.Held at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre, The Citadel Theatre's productions of Courageous and The Drowsy Chaperone respectively won Outstanding Production of a Play and Outstanding Musical Production at the end of the evening's celebration of Edmonton theatre, both co-productions (Courageous with Toronto's Tarragon theatre, Chaperone with Vancouver's Playhouse Theatre Company). Chaperone also saw a Sterling for Outstanding Choreography, though the Citadel's Sweeney Todd, up for more awards than any other production, wasn't awarded a single trophy.
That's indicative of the evening's more even spread: no one company or production took home a staggering amount of trophies, or swept its nominations in totality. The most trophies (four) went to Theatre Network: Marianne Copithorne picked up Outstanding Director for The Woman in Black, and a trio of Sterlings went to The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan, their co-production with The Old Trout Puppet workshop, for Costume Design, Lighting Design, and Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role. The latter went to a giddy, expletive-filled Duval Lang, who admitted he'd long admired the Edmonton theatre scene from Calgary. "Fuck, I still do," he giggled.
Supporting Actor and Actress Sterlings were given to George Szilagyi for AARRGGHH!! Productions' of Hockey Stories for Boys and Nadine Chu's turn in the Freewill Players' Titus Andronicus, respectively. Bretta Gerecke took home a statue for her Set Design on Edmonton Opera's Rigoletto, and David Belke's one-woman The Science of Disconnection brought a pair of Sterlings to Shadow Theatre: Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role, for Cathy Derkach's one-woman portrayal of physicist Lise Meitner. Varscona theatre-mates Teatro La Quindicina saw three trophies go their way: Outstanding Score and Outstanding Musical Director, to their end-of-season hit Everybody Goes to Mitzi's!, and playwright Stewart Lemoine picked up Outstanding New Fringe Work for The Oculist's Holiday.
Rounding out the rest of the Fringe awards, Kenneth Brown saw hardware for Outstanding Director on Spiral Dive: Part 2, Edmonton ex-pat Kevin Gillese took the Outstanding Fringe Actor category for his spoken word/dark rap confessional Wisdom Teeth and the kindred Actress award went to Beth Graham for Victor and Victoria's Terrifying Tale of Terrible Things, which also won Outstanding Fringe Production.
For the second year in a row, The Maggie Tree won Outstanding Independent Production, this time for Folie à Deux, their presentation of Trevor Schmidt's harrowing, based-on-a-true-tale script. In the theatre for young audiences categories, the Artistic Achievement award went to Project: Whooping Crane (a co-production between Fringe Theatre Adventures and The Green Fools Theatre in Calgary), and Overall Outstanding Production was awarded to Concrete Theatre's Routes.
Catalyst Theatre's Brenda McNicol recieved The Margaret Mooney Award for Outstanding Achievement in Administration, while the inaugural Ross Hill Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production was given to recent U of A retiree Alan Walch.
Lemoine also made a heartfelt speech for Tim Ryan, the beloved founding father of Grant MacEwan's Musical theatre program who passed away in early November, post-humously being given the Sterling for Outstanding Contribution to Theatre in Edmonton. Before calling Ryan's daughter and wife onstage to speak themselves, Lemoine spoke with warmth of Ryan's commitment to developing young artists. "When we talk about losing Ryan, I think it's an oxymoron," Lemoine said, noting the immense amount of present talent Ryan had helped bolster in the room.
Host Peter Brown stated that from next year onwards, the Outstanding Production of a musical award would be named in Ryan's honour. V
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