Down here in Charlotte, the aftershocks are still reverberating. Our Charlotte/Mecklenburg Arts & Science Council trimmed back their usually burgeoning expectations, aiming instead to merely match the admirable haul of their 2001 fund drive. Charlotte Repertory Theatre, the big dog among local companies, has excised two events from their February calendar, making their bow to diminished financial expectations.
Otherwise, the Charlotte theater was remarkably vibrant in 2001. Looking back at the last time we printed our Awards roundup 12 months ago, what's most shocking is how well our calls have been heeded. We signed off by asking local groups "to consider inserting more telling drama and cutting satire into the mix."
Boy, did they ever. While comedy and musical output was relatively flat, entries in our drama category jumped by 80 percent. Rep hit us with a pair of Pulitzer Prize winners, Wit and Dinner With Friends. And they premiered Benedictions, where a minister confronted her congregation's exclusionary attitude toward gays -- and her own.
Actor's Theatre scored satirically with Anton in Show Business and Violet, a musical that featured a wicked scene with a corrupt preacher. CP fired with The Crucible. Children's Theatre descended into the dungeons of Edgar Allen Poe. Theatre Charlotte attacked viscerally with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -- and for a second straight summer hosted a series of new and challenging works produced by Stage One. BareBones also took a cerebral tack with David Hare's Skylight and the spooky Turn of the Screw. Even in sylvan Matthews, the newly transplanted Victory Pictures gave us One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Under the barrage of intellectual protein and dramatic relevance, Charlotte's buttoned-down politicos and righteous religious reactionaries didn't freak out. No outrage emanated from NoDa when Off-Tryon Theatre Company brought the decadence of Les Liaisons Dangeureuses to their quaint quonset on Cullman Avenue. Early in October, OTTC imported the Terrence McNally work that stirred up so much controversy in New York, Corpus Christi, without stirring any here.
Sizing up the quonset hut on Cullman Avenue last February, we said it was "looking more and more like Charlotte's version of Off Broadway." Well, don't let anyone tell you that Angels in America visionary Tony Kushner has a monopoly on prophecy. Thanks to the miracle of marketing -- and a new welcoming attitude by the Arts & Science Council toward small theater groups -- flyers proclaiming Charlotte's Off-Broadway were turning up on the most cultured mailing lists in town by mid-August.
So before the ASC began tightening their belts, they had already opened their minds. Overall, that was a big win for Charlotte theater and true cultural diversity.
For those who like their theater light and fizzy, there was still much to admire. Rep's revival of The Foreigner, given a new terrorist edge, still scored highest on the laugh meter, though others might argue for Theatre Charlotte's The Importance of Being Earnest or Children's Theatre's Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.
CPCC Summer Theatre had another enthralling season. The richness of Oliver! was narrowly surpassed by the dazzle of Singin' in the Rain. When the fantastic rain began falling near the end of Act 1 at Singin' in the Rain, an exhilarating thought popped into my head. It was exactly the same thought I had when I first looked at that flyer announcing our own Off-Broadway. We can do it.
On Sunday, CL's 15th Annual Charlotte Theatre Awards were presented at Spirit Square's McGlohon Theatre. Here are the winners:
THEATERPERSONS OF THE YEAR
Individually, there were multiple reasons for Anne Lambert, James Yost, and John Hartness to take this prize. Lambert jump-started the theater calendar last season with Charlotte's only tribute to Obie-winning playwright Maria Irene Fornes, directing Fefu and Her Friends. She and her Chickspeare banditas then brought their own feminist brand of guerilla theater to Garbo's, staging readings of Stop Kiss, Savage in Limbo, and Why We Have a Body with strong, revolving casts. Yost, founder and artistic director of BareBones Theatre Group, had a stellar year artistically, earning nominations in the drama category as both actor and director of Drift, as an academic sociopath in Farewell Party, and as director of Skylight. Hartness also achieved multiple nominations while managing Off-Tryon Theatre, now the funkiest, busiest theater space in Charlotte. Most notable was Hartness' stage direction for Corpus Christi and his lighting design for Fefu, Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, Corpus, and The Baltimore Waltz.
But it's what Lambert, Yost, and Hartness achieved together that captures the prize. Bankrolled by an $8500 collaborative marketing grant from the Arts & Science Council, the trio -- and their three theater groups -- put together Charlotte's Off-Broadway. Suddenly, with big print ads and a 17-show season lineup, the Queen City's littlest theater groups loomed large. And so far -- particularly with Off-Tryon's Corpus Christi, BareBones' Turn of the Screw, and the Chickspeare/BareBones Desdemona -- the product has lived up to the hype. The coalition is holding, and Charlotte's alternative theater scene has a new, vibrant synergy.
DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
Piloting two of our category winners, Wit (Best Drama) and Benedictions (Best Original Show), Steve Umberger was the runaway victor. Both of these dramas revolved around the acute sufferings of female protagonists -- the physical torments of a pedantic professor dying from ovarian cancer (Wit) and the spiritual trial of a minister who loses her faith after the death of her children (Benedictions). In each case, mood and essence were captured unerringly. But the founder of Charlotte Rep can also be a fun guy. Umberger's comedic gifts were underscored last fall as Rep launched its 25th anniversary with two uproariously successful revivals, The Foreigner and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. The Ubiquitous One fine-tuned his Ballyhoo and added a menacing edge to Foreigner that made it surprisingly, and rewardingly, topical.
ACTRESS OF THE YEAR
Up until 2001, Sheila Snow's local reputation was built entirely at Chickspeare playing dashing male protagonists -- and antagonists -- in a string of Chickspearean productions. But in her breakthrough year, Snow explored the theatrical terra incognita of her own gender. She brought her signature smirk along with her for a supporting role in Chickspeare's Fefu and Her Friends. Predatory fangs were still intact as Snow played the manipulative Marquise de Merteuil in Off-Tryon's Les Liaisons Dangeureuses. Then she went totally female, portraying a curiously morbid klepto in BareBones' production of Three Viewings. No trace of the old Snow smirk surfaced in the Off-Tryon revival of Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz. What remained was a winning naivete, a twinkle of comedy, and a touch of mad desperation -- all exquisitely blended.
ACTOR OF THE YEAR
Duke Ernsberger has been a comedy commodity on the Charlotte theater scene for so long that his acting excellence is often taken for granted. The man of a thousand teeth reminded us of his dramatic prowess early in the year, plaguing the adorably tormented Presbyterian minister of Benedictions as beancounting homophobe Ray Richey. Then he took on the zaniest of cowboy roles in Rep's workshop production of Home on the Range as a wheelchair-bound kook who imagines he's Gene Autry, stealing scene after scene with his raucous entrances. Ernsberger took somewhat the opposite approach in the title role of The Foreigner, stripping away some of Charlie Baker's schtick, so that playwright Larry Shue's points on prejudice and terrorism could share the spotlight. Often nominated before, Duke gets the CL spotlight for his 2001 gems.
SHOW OF THE YEAR
Nothing else I saw in 2001 blew me away quite so thoroughly as Anton in Show Business by the mysterious Jane Martin. Superbly directed for Actor's Theatre by 1997 Theatreperson of the Year Dennis Delamar, Anton was the most revelatory script I encountered anywhere until I saw Tony Kushner's prophetic Homebody/Kabul late in December in New York. Cleverly paralleling Chekhov's Three Sisters while mercilessly depicting how today's entertainment factories mangle the classics, Anton eerily empathized with the ill-equipped actresses attempting to bring the pathetic sibs back to life. The most wicked satire was aimed at a pretentious Brit director and a Don King-like sponsor who exploit the actresses and compromise the art. A dense, carping critic planted in the audience topped off this hilariously absurd confection. But what had me in tears as I drove home from Anton was the wonderfully knit ensemble cast, totally dedicated at every sly turn, gloriously overachieving.
COMPANY OF THE YEAR
Anton was the prime example of the artistry and audacity that Actor's Theatre of Charlotte sustained throughout 2001. They began auspiciously with Martin McDonough's The Cripple of Inishmaan, capturing the soaring aspirations and the petty backbiting of an Irish backwater village during the Great Depression. Brutal, naturalistic, hysterically heartbreaking comedy. ATC went on to Anton and continued strong with their best musical production ever, Violet, based on Doris Betts's "The Ugliest Pilgrim" with heavy Flannery O'Connor flavorings. Then, largely because executive director Dan Shoemaker had the guts to ask for the rights, ATC premiered Thumbs, a new comedy-mystery-thriller by Tony Award winner Rupert Holmes. Every time Actor's Theatre pushed the envelope last year, they came out a winner.
DRAMAS
Best Drama: Wit -- Charlotte Rep
Best Actor: Alan McClintock -- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Randle P. McMurphy)
Best Actress: Rebecca Koon -- Wit (Dr. Vivian Bearing)
Best Director: Steve Umberger -- Benedictions, Wit
Best Supporting Actor: Duke Ernsberger -- Benedictions (Ray Richey)
Best Supporting Actress: Lesley Hunt -- Wit (Dr. E.M. Ashford)
MUSICALS
Best Musical: Singin' in the Rain -- CPCC Summer Theatre
Best Actor: Kevin Jayroe -- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Joseph)
Best Actress: Lesley Shires -- Singin' in the Rain (Kathy Seldon)
Best Director: Tom Hollis -- Oliver!
Best Conductor/Music Director: Scott McKenzie -- Violet, The Robber Bridegroom
Best Choreographer: Eddie Mabry -- Singin' in the Rain
Best Supporting Actor: Bobby Tyson -- Violet (Flick)
Best Supporting Actress: Lisa Smith -- Oliver! (Nancy)
Best Cameo Appearance: Mike Farmer -- Violet (Preacher)
COMEDIES
Best Comedy: Anton in Show Business -- Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
Best Actor: Dennis Delamar - The Importance of Being Earnest (Algernon Moncrieff)
Best Actress: Sheila Snow -- The Baltimore Waltz (Anna)
Best Director: Dennis Delamar -- Anton in Show Business
Best Supporting Actor: Graham Smith -- The Foreigner (Owen Musser)
Best Supporting Actress: Lorraine Larocque -- The Cripple of Inishmaan (Slippy Helen)
THEATERCRAFTS
Best Sound Designer: Gary Sivak/Roger Davis -- Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
Best Set Designer: Sandra Gray -- The Importance of Being Earnest, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
Best Costume Designer: Johann Stegmeir -- Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse
Best Lighting Designer: Hallie Gray -- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Turn of the Screw
Special Technical Effects: Ali Gharib, Dominic Demichina, and Robert Lee Simmons -- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Video Design)
BEST ORIGINAL SHOW
Benedictions by Judy Simpson Cook - Charlotte Rep
COLLEGE/TEEN PRODUCTIONS
Best Show: Boy Gets Girl -- Davidson College
Best Actor: Jason Loughlin -- Beyond the Horizon (Andrew)
Best Actress: Beth Gardner -- Boy Gets Girl (Theresa Bedell)
NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR
Eric Blake -- Les Liaisons Dangeureuses (Chevalier Danceny), Mindscreams (Mitchell/"Mr. Nifty"), American Buffalo (Bobby)
THEATRE EVENT OF THE YEAR
Fefu and Her Friends -- Chickspeare
SWEET 16 FOR 2001
1. Anton in Show Business -- Actor's Theatre
2. Wit -- Charlotte Rep
3. Singin' in the Rain -- CPCC Summer Theatre
4. Violet -- Actor's Theatre
5. Dinner With Friends -- Charlotte Rep
6. Les Liaisons Dangeureuses -- Off-Tryon
7. Oliver! -- CPCC Summer Theatre
8. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse -- Children's Theatre
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- Victory Pictures
10. The Importance of Being Earnest -- Theatre Charlotte
11. Benedictions -- Charlotte Rep
12. The Cripple of Inishmaan -- Actor's Theatre
13. Turn of the Screw -- BareBones
14. The Foreigner -- Charlotte Rep
15. Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters -- Children's Theatre
16. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -- Theatre Charlotte
DA BOMBS
1. Through The Eyes Of Pinter Scribe -- 411 Productions
2. Da' Seventh Inning Stretch -- Walking on Our Hands Productions
3. Happy Days -- Shades of Gray
4. Black Nativity -- Afro-American Children's Theatre
5. Macbeth -- Moving Poets