CL's 19th Annual Charlotte Theater Awards 

It was a year when new theater companies came and went. And old ones upped and died -- or took seriously ill.

Yet, late in 2005, new growth appeared on the landscape. Amid the hoopla of the new Charlotte Bobcats Arena -- and the celebrated implosion of the old convention center -- something fresh and pioneering appeared downtown.

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• Perry Tannenbaum
• ImaginOn

ImaginOn.

The ironies were manifold. In the same year that the demise of Charlotte Repertory Theatre heaped shame and scorn upon the city, this new homeplace of Children's Theatre of Charlotte brought congratulations and acclaim. Less than a year after Rep self-destructed in quest of a Tony Award, a prestigious Tony Award winner, Peter Brosius, was thrilled by the concept of ImaginOn, praising its breakthrough synergy of youth theater and children's library while lauding Charlotte for its vision.

Continuing the trend of recent years, which have seen gleaming performing arts palaces arise at Davidson College and UNC-Charlotte, Central Piedmont Community College in November unveiled its new Academic and Performing Arts Center. Fronted by colonnades reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial, the new CPCC building casts a lordly gaze upon the city skyline from its site on Kings Drive.

It boasts one helluva new theater, the 1,000-plus seat Halton. With an orchestra pit accommodating two dozen musicians, Halton Theater immediately moved to the head of the class as the best space in town for musicals and small-scale operas. Productions of The Sound of Music, Carmen and Jesus Christ Superstar have already shown that the Halton is playing a key role in lifting the school's artistic game.

While the new Halton Theater elevated CPCC's stature -- spawning high expectations for its first summer theater season yet to come -- ImaginOn has cemented Children's Theatre's dominance in the wake of the Rep's unraveling.

Opening their state-of-the-art McColl Family Theatre at ImaginOn with a dazzling production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, artistic director Alan Poindexter and his brilliant design team showed what they could do in a space designed from the ground up for youth theater. The inaugural ImaginOn show dominates both the drama and the technical categories in Creative Loafing's 2005 Charlotte Theatre Awards. Lion also roars to a decisive triumph as Show of the Year.

The production was nearly as mind-blowing as ImaginOn itself. Never before has an American youth theater partnered with a library, a union that couples a governmental organization with a nonprofit entity.

If Children's Theatre was taking an imaginative leap, the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County was on a hallucinogenic roller coaster. Sure, children's libraries have been around for generations, but can you name one that stands completely apart from the adult library?

ImaginOn was a leap into the unknown for PLCMC -- and for the theater's innovative architects. Before he participated in planning ImaginOn, Benton Delinger of Theatre Projects Consultants played a key role in such famed facilities as the Goodman in Chicago, Kimmel Center in Philly and the Roundabout on Broadway. Still, he marvels at the leap of faith that birthed ImaginOn.

"Just the fact that they say, 'Well, let's just pull out the library and build a kids' library.' Just as a starting point, that's pretty amazing to me," says Delinger. "And then out of that, let's build it with a theater company. There is such great synergy between Children's Theatre and the Children's Library, and I love it. I tell all the other clients I'm working with, 'Pay attention to this part of the country, because it shows a strong commitment to children and to education and the arts and library sciences that I think is spectacular.'"

Poindexter led an expeditionary group that reconnoitered the best youth theater organizations in the country, picking brains, surveying facilities and discovering programs that could be adapted to ImaginOn. Among the places he visited were Seattle Children's Theatre and the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis.

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• Radok
• Alan Poindexter a CL Theaterperson of the Year as well as Best Director (Drama) winner for Fahrenheit 451 and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe inside the new ImaginOn theater.

Having won the Regional Tony Award in 2003, the Minneapolis company was an obvious destination for a Poindexter pilgrimage -- particularly since it shares its real estate with the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. Peter Brosius is the artistic director whose vision brought national acclaim -- and the Tony -- to his hometown.

Brosius sees ImaginOn as a momentous breakthrough. "Obviously, when you combine facilities like this, the possibility exists for some incredible synergies," he observes. "Those take time, those take effort, but the idea of creating a youth-oriented destination in Charlotte is just thrilling. And I hope people start making the trek to Charlotte the way they've been making the trek to the Twin Cities. It's going to be exciting for the entire nation."

Brosius is helping to build that excitement by exporting his company's Neighborhood Bridges Program to Charlotte. It's a youth program designed to develop critical thinking and writing skills through storytelling -- the common mission that links this city's Children's Theatre with the public library.

Minneapolis staffers came here to train the teachers in Children's Theatre of Charlotte's educational programs. They'll be back.

"Our staff came back and was very excited about both the quality of the teachers they worked with there and the whole program," Brosius reports. "Our feeling, of course, is that more is more. So we are thrilled to welcome new professional colleagues to the field because, hopefully, they'll be generating work that we'll want to do, they'll generate education programs that we'll want to replicate. We look forward to all kinds of collaborations between Minneapolis and Charlotte."

Brosius confesses that his company is "partnership crazy," a lesson that remains lost on the Char-Meck Arts & Science Council. When it comes to fostering new performing arts organizations, more is not more to members of that crucial funding organization. Nobody rushed to throw Charlotte Rep a life raft as it was foundering. Nor in the pitiless feeding frenzy that followed did the surviving leaders of the adult theater scene get a noticeably bigger piece of the ASC's largesse.

BareBones Theatre Group, which dominated our comedy category, was homeless at year's end. Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, which had long since eclipsed Rep in relevance and artistic excellence, is still pushed to the fringe at funding time -- though it continued to dominate CL's musical categories for the 2005 year. Combined with Moving Poets Theatre of Dance, now on the verge of extinction due to financial asphyxiation, Actor's and BareBones barely draw one percent of the ASC's funding.

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• Chip Decker
• Craig Spradley is the Best Director (Musical) winner for tick, tick ... BOOM! and he also directed this years Best Comedy winner Johnny Guitar

On the other hand, the ASC has learned a valuable lesson from the Rep fiasco under its new president, Lee Keesler. Heeding CL's analysis rather than the lame death-rattle prattle that issued from Rep's offices, Keesler and the ASC have understood that Rep was cannibalized by its colossally arrogant -- and ignorant -- board of trustees.

"We're now four months into a cultural leadership training program," Keesler told me in December. "We have 30 people in there this first time, and it's people from all over the community, not just from the corporate sector. ... If it works right, we hope we'll have 30 fresh, better-educated, better-oriented board members to offer out into the cultural system when that program is complete in the late spring."

The new nine-month program will yield its first crop of educated board prospects in May. Meanwhile, at Actor's Theatre and Children's Theatre, the lessons of Rep's tragedy have already been learned. Dan Shoemaker, executive director at Actor's, recruits board members exclusively from the company's roster of subscribers.

At Children's Theatre, Poindexter makes sure to lay down the law to his corps of volunteers.

"Once we have them in the door," Poindexter maintains, "if someone thinks they're sitting there to pad their résumé, it's our job to make their journey with the organization clearer. It becomes our responsibility as arts organizations to say, 'Here's what you're really here for. Yes, you're getting credit on your résumé to advance your own personal career, but you're also here to help us. If you're not here to help us, then you shouldn't be here."

Here are CL's 19th Annual Charlotte Theatre Awards:

THEATERPERSONS OF THE YEAR

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• Courtesy Donna Bise
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe brought in awards for Show of the Year, Best Drama, Best Actress (Drama) for Catherine Smith (pictured right), and both Best Costume Design and Set Design for Johann Steigmeir

After playing a key role in configuring the revolutionary ImaginOn, Alan Poindexter made sure the groundbreaking production at Charlotte's new fantasy palace was a smashing success. Bringing the C.S. Lewis classic back to life, Poindexter takes our Theaterperson crown for the third time. More than merely our Show of the Year, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sustained the wondrous "wow factor" of walking into ImaginOn and justifying the entire enterprise.

Children's Theatre executive director Bruce LaRowe probably said it best when we chatted a couple of months ago:

"Youth theater deserves and requires a technical flexibility that, in many ways, adult theater doesn't because of the myriad locations in the fantasy lands we need to explore in the same piece. Something like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe deserves rear projection ability, and it deserves trappable floors, and it deserves a fly loft so that you're not compromising everywhere you turn. It's really what the literature calls for. So to see Alan and others do the work in a space that's designed for it -- you used the word wonderment, well, that truly is it."

Michael Simmons ascends to the Theaterperson throne for the first time this year, although he's been winning individual acting, directing, designing and even special-effects awards here since 1999. Once again, Simmons was a serious contender for dramatic actor (Orange Lemon Egg Canary), comedy actor (I'm Not Rappaport) and Actor of the Year honors, pulling in additional nominations for directing (Orphans), lighting design (Mrs. Bob Crachit's Wild Christmas Binge) and special effects (Orange Lemon Egg Canary). All of this might be just another ho-hum achievement for Simmons were it not for the fact that it comes after his company, Carolina Actors Studio Theatre, was written off as dead.

Simmons kept his company afloat while experiencing serious health problems -- a potentially deadly kidney combination of stones and tumor. But he soldiered onstage to perform as the spit-and-polish judge in A Few Good Men, which arguably merited another nod in the cameo category. Simmons' health woes have forced the cancellation of Lips Together Teeth Apart, but we expect him and CAST to keep on keeping on.

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR

When you've directed the two best musicals we saw in Charlotte last year, you've earned this recognition. Craig Spradley did that at Actor's Theatre, a company that isn't blessed with the lavish production budgets it deserves. With Spradley in the director's chair and a fab Tommy Foster singing the lead role of a struggling composer (Rent's Jonathan Larson thinly disguised), tick, tick ... BOOM! was both irresistibly effervescent and finely nuanced. Johnny Guitar wasn't quite so perfected, but it was as funny as any comedy produced last year, glittering with more performance gems and liberally laced with Spradley shtick.

ACTOR OF THE YEAR

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• Chip Decker
• Tick, Tick ... BOOM! garnered the Best Musical award and Best Supporting Actor (Musical) award for Joseph Klosek (pictured right, with Katie Flaherty and Tommy Foster)

In a crowded, hotly contested field, Hank West ekes out a microscopic win, largely on the strength of his performance as Red Pewsey in Coyote Ugly, winner of our Best Comedy laurel and easily the wickedest show to hit Charlotte in 2005. West also helped keep an oft-tedious Caught in the Net watchable for CP Summer Theatre. Now that I think of it, he took on a similar lifesaving role in his brief stint at the MTA Awards ceremonies.

ACTRESS OF THE YEAR

No contest here as Susan Roberts Knowlson racked up what must be considered among the most prolific -- and artistically accomplished -- years ever achieved in Charlotte theater. Knowlson began the year stealing the spotlight as ditzy Brooke Ashton in Theatre Charlotte's remount of Noises Off, and she finished by gloriously christening the new Halton Theater, starring as Maria Rainer in The Sound of Music. In between, Knowlson scored additional comedy triumphs in Miss Nelson Is Missing and Gypsy -- her gyrating Tessie Tura winning an additional palm in the cameo category. What else could you ask for? Lyrical perfection as Knowlson scintillated in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

SHOW OF THE YEAR

By far, the best of the best was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But for once, you don't have to take our word for it. For those of you who missed the record-breaking, sellout presentation last fall, there's an encore coming back to McColl Family Theatre on May 19. Tickets are already on sale.

COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Need we say more? Children's Theatre of Charlotte wins for the fifth time, moving ahead of Actor's Theatre -- and Charlotte Rep -- for the most wins ever. Let us count the ways:

1. Three of the best dramas of 2005, Fahrenheit 451, Amazing Grace and Lion.

2. One of our top finalists among the musicals, Miss Nelson Is Missing.

3. One of our top comedy finalists, A Christmas Story.

4. Solid productions that were crowded out from our lists of nominees but worthy of honorable mention, including A Thousand Cranes, The Velveteen Rabbit and The Littlest Angel.

The place is a powerhouse, still Charlotte's top hatchery of new theater talent. Armed with ImaginOn, Children's Theatre is stronger than ever.

DRAMAS

Best Drama: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- Children's Theatre of Charlotte

Best Actor: Tom Scott -- Orphans (Harold)

Best Actress: Catherine Smith -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The White Witch)

Best Director: Alan Poindexter -- Fahrenheit 451, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

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• Carrie Cranford
• Jerry Colbert (center) won Best Actor (Musical) and Polly Adkins (right) won Best Supporting Actress (Musical) for Johnny Guitar (pictured with Pam Hunt-Spradley)

Best Choreographer: Delia Neil -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Best Supporting Actress: Kim Watson Brooks -- A Lesson Before Dying (Vivian Baptiste), Bug (R.C.)

Best Supporting Actor: Jonathan Ewart -- Orphans (Phillip)

MUSICALS

Best Musical: tick, tick ... BOOM! -- Actor's Theatre of Charlotte

Best Actor: Jerry Colbert -- Johnny Guitar (Johnny Guitar)

Best Actress: Susan Roberts Knowlson -- Miss Nelson Is Missing (Miss Nelson-Viola Swamp), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Millie Pontipee), The Sound of Music (Maria Rainer)

Best Director: Craig Spradley -- tick, tick ... BOOM!, Johnny Guitar

Best Conductor/Music Director: Drina Keen -- Cats, The Sound of Music

Best Supporting Actress: Polly Adkins -- Johnny Guitar (Emma)

Best Supporting Actor: Joseph Klosek -- tick, tick ... BOOM! (Michael), Johnny Guitar (The Dancin' Kid)

Best Cameo Appearance, Female: Susan Roberts Knowlson -- Gypsy (Tessie Tura)

COMEDIES

Best Comedy: Coyote Ugly -- BareBones Theatre Group

Best Actor: David Holland -- The Tempest (Prospero)

Best Actress: Greta Marie Zandstra -- Suitcase, or Those That Resemble Flies From a Distance (Jen)

Best Director: Matt Cosper -- Coyote Ugly

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Lambert -- Coyote Ugly (Andreas Pewsey)

Best Supporting Actor: Hank West -- Coyote Ugly (Red Pewsey)

Best Cameo Appearance, Male: Robert Haulbrook -- Crazyface (Wormwood)

THEATERCRAFTS

Best Costume Designer: Johann Stegmeir -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Best Lighting Designer: Eric Winkenwerder -- Fahrenheit 451, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Best Set Designer: Johann Stegmeir -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Best Sound Designer: Tony Wright -- The Tempest

Best Special Effects: TIE: Ryan Fischer -- Cats (Hair, Wigs and Make Up); Sandra Gray -- Amazing Grace (Hannibal's Elephant, Pirate Ship)

BEST ORIGINAL SHOW

The Body Chronicles -- Donna Scott Productions

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR

Chris Donoghue -- Noises Off (Tim Allgood), Our Town (George Gibbs), Coyote Ugly (Fight Choreography), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Fenris Ulf-Fight Choreography)

THEATER EVENT OF THE YEAR

Royal Shakespeare Residency @ Davidson College

SWEET 16 FOR 2005

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- Children's Theatre of Charlotte

2. tick, tick ... BOOM! -- Actor's Theatre of Charlotte

3. Coyote Ugly -- BareBones Theatre Group

4. Johnny Guitar -- Actor's Theatre of Charlotte

5. Forever Plaid -- Blumenthal Performing Arts Center

6. Orphans -- Carolina Actors Studio Theatre

7. Polish Joke -- Actor's Theatre of Charlotte

8. Crazyface -- BareBones Theatre Group

9. Miss Nelson Is Missing -- Children's Theatre of Charlotte

10. Orange Lemon Egg Canary -- Carolina Actors Studio Theatre

11. Sin: A Cardinal Deposed -- Pi Productions

12. Suitcase, or Those That Resemble Flies From a Distance -- BareBones Theatre Group

13. The Sound of Music -- CPCC Theatre

14. The Tempest -- The Actor's Gym

15. Fahrenheit 451 -- Children's Theatre of Charlotte

16. Beauty and the Beast -- Charlotte Summer Theatre

DA BOMBS

1. The Hamletmachine -- Off-Tryon Theatre Company

2. The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Presents A Christmas Carol -- Theatre Charlotte

3. Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land -- CAST

4. Seven Deadly Sins -- Moving Poets Theatre of Dance

5. Harvey -- CPCC Theatre