Drama Desk Awards Honor "Mormon," "Anything," "Normal," "Tiger" and More...

You may recall that I said I was way behind on awards season. I still am. Sigh. But I am trying to catch up.

So, first, let's talk the Drama Desk Awards. These are presented for excellence in New York theater, whether it's on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, or from "legitimate, not-for-profit theatres." In fact, the Drama Desk organization decided in 1955 to create awards to recognize "creative stage achievements wherever they were presented." As long as it's New York, of course.

Because they so frequently center on Broadway shows, the Drama Desk Awards are often seen as precursors to the Tony Awards. If you are handicapping those, a look at Drama Desk winners may be helpful.

This year's awards were presented on May 23, with Harvey Fierstein acting as the host for the evening. The Stephen Sondheim Theatre revival of "Anything Goes" and the new musical "The Book of Mormon," created by the "South Park" guys (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) along with Robert Lopez from "Avenue Q," were the big winners, taking home five awards each, with Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" and Rajiv Joseph's "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" each taking two.

"The Book of Mormon" won Outstanding Musical and Nick Stafford's "War Horse" was named Outstanding Play. For revivals, "The Normal Heart" won the award for Outstanding Play and Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" won Outstanding Musical.

Frances McDormand took Outstanding Actress in a Play honors for her role in "Good People," while Outstanding Actor in a Play went to Bobby Cannavale for "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" in a bit of an upset, since Mark Rylance (for "Jerusalem") had been considered the front-runner. And Joe Mantello (for "The Normal Heart"), who wasn't nominated for a Drama Desk, has been talked about as a hot prospect for the Tony. ("The Normal Heart" did win a Drama Desk Award for its ensemble, as opposed to honoring individual actors.)

Rounding out the acting awards for plays were Brian Bedford, named Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for playing Lady Bracknell in the Roundabout's "The Importance of Being Earnest," and Edie Falco, Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for the "House of Blue Leaves" revival at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

On the musical side, Outstanding Actor was Norbert Leo Butz for the musical version of "Catch Me If You Can," and Outstanding Actress was Sutton Foster for "Anything Goes," in which she plays Reno Sweeney.

Awards for Outstanding Featured Actress and Actor in musicals were handed out to Laura Benanti for "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and John Larroquette as big boss J.B. Biggley in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" opposite Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe.

In a bit of a departure for him, Joel Grey, who is currently playing Moonface Martin in the "Anything Goes" revival we've been talking about, took home a Drama Desk Award for his direction; he and George C. Wolfe won for their co-direction of "The Normal Heart." And Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker shared the award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical, too, for "Book of Mormon."

To see the complete list of winners, you can click here. I am especially happy for Laura Benanti and Joel Grey, two of my all-time favorite performers.

Even though I think Bobby Cannavale is a champ, I am still hoping Joe Mantello wins the Tony, mostly because I'm glad he returned to acting. I couldn't have loved him more when he played Louis in "Angels in America" -- such a fabulous performance -- and yes, he's an amazing director, but still... It's great to have him back on stage. "The Normal Heart" is a searing, fiercely moving play, and a perfect vehicle to lure Mantello back. So I'm hoping Tony voters will recognize that and hand him the award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, even though the nominees include Cannavale and Bedford, who both won Drama Desk Awards last week, and Mark Rylance for "Jerusalem," the putative favorite, and Al Pacino, nominated for "The Merchant of Venice." Never bet against Al Pacino. It's a tough category all around. Go, Joe Mantello!

All the Drama Desk nominees are listed here, while you can find the Tony nominees here. The Drama Desk website says that the May 23rd ceremony was filmed, with plans to be aired on the Ovation network between June 2 and 15. The Tony Awards ceremony will be televised live on CBS on Sunday, June 12, at 7 pm Central time.

I just realized I have the perfect dress for that, so if anyone wants to invite me to a Tony viewing party, I'm ready. I will even offer my star-shaped beaded coasters as incentive. Me, my dress and my coasters... Any takers?

"As You Like It" from the Globe to the Art

The Art Theater in Champaign continues its "Shakespeare in Cinema" series (direct from the Globe!) with "As You Like It" tomorrow and Sunday at noon.

If you recall, a company called Opus Arte has been filming live performances of "the world's finest opera, ballet, theatre and music" and sending them to movie theaters all over the world. I saw a lovely "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Art Theater earlier this year, concluding that there was no real downside to seeing a filmed version of staged Shakespeare, no matter how awkward that sounds.

This "As You Like It," directed by Thea Sharrock, was very well received by critics when it played at the Globe, with the Guardian offering that "Naomi Frederick's superb Rosalind is a woman of wit and intelligence" and "[Jack] Laskey's Orlando is equally bewitched, bothered and bewildered, and the playfulness between the two is a pleasure."


You can watch a trailer for the film here and decide for yourself whether this Rosalind and Orlando are to your liking. Or you can click here to find out more about the cast and crew.

For those of us unable to get to the Globe as a matter of course, these "Shakespeare in Cinema" screenings are a pretty sweet deal.

U of I Summer Studio Starts June 2

After successful summer seasons under several summer names, the University of Illinois Department of Theatre skipped a year, offering no summer shows last year.

Well, it's baaaaaack!

Summer Studio Theatre opens next week, with [title of show], the Hunter Bell/Jeff Bowen musical about trying to create a musical. If they can't even come up with a title to fill in the first blank on their form for the musical contest, how will Hunter and Jeff (Yes, they named the characters after themselves. But they did play the roles originally, so... There was a reason.) and their friends Susan and Heidi come up with any musical at all? [title of show] is directed by Robert G. Anderson, which is good news for [title of show] but bad news for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival over here in Bloomington, since Anderson has been very, very good playing a whole bunch of different roles the past few seasons. [title of show] plays for ten performances, closing June 26.

The second show on the Summer Studio roster is Peter Parnell's "QED," opening June 8th. Lisa Gaye Dixon directs this almost-one-man show that dances around Richard Feynman, a professor of Quantum Electrodynamics (the QED in the title) as he puts together a lecture, advises a student, reminisces about his past and deals with illness. Champaign-Urbana actor Gary Ambler will play Feynman in eight performances through June 24.

"Blithe Spirit," the third show in this summer rep, doesn't start till July 7th, with Peter Davis at the helm. This Noel Coward classic was revived on Broadway in 2009, with Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati, the wacky medium who accidentally conjures up the ghost of newly-married Charles Condomine's first wife, the divine Elvira. I don't know which role she's playing, but I do know that Joi Hoffsommer, a terrific actress who did Coward's "Private Lives" in Krannert's Studio Theatre during a long-ago summer season, will be in there somewhere. Will she be Madame Arcati? She's a more likely Elvira, but who knows?

"Blithe Spirit" gets the Studio Theatre all to itself in July, playing from the 7th to the 23rd. That means these shows are not literally playing in repertory, but it is summer, so... I'm calling it summer rep.

For details and reservations, go here. If you click on MAKE PLANS, you'll find a handy calendar of events.

Getting Together with One State, Normal or Not

This just in! One State Together in the Arts has announced they will be live-streaming their 2011 conference. That means you can participate at home, even if you can't get to the Uptown Normal Marriott tomorrow or Tuesday to take part in person.

To find the live-stream, you are invited to go to www.onestateillinois.com and click the big orange "Watch Live" button.

One State says you will be able to see:

• Visionary designer and author Bruce Mau's keynote, starting at 10:45 am CDT on Monday.

• The Breakthrough Ideas of Frank Maugeri of Redmoon Theater; James Goggin of the Museum of Contemporary Art; and members of Albany Park Theater Project, starting at 1:00 pm CDT on Monday.

• Breakthrough People Kevin Coval of Louder than a Bomb, Carrie Sandahl of UIC's Program on Disability Art, Culture and Humanities; and Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon, starting at 3:30 pm CDT on Monday

• Talks about Breakthrough Connections by Orbert Davis of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic; playwright and actor Tanya Saracho; and Daniel Sinker of Columbia College Chicago (and @MayorEmanuel fame), starting at 10:00 am CDT on Tuesday

All you need to do is go here and click the button that looks like this:


ENJOY!

The Osborn Award: "When January Feels Like Summer," by Cori Thomas

Yes, I am still catching up on awards. But I think it's good to recognize award-winners, even if you don't do it in a timely manner!

So, apologies for tardiness to Cori Thomas, who was awarded the M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award for her play, When January Feels Like Summer, along with the $1,000 cash prize that goes along with the award, back in April.

The M. Elizabeth Osborn Award, named after former Theatre Communications Group and American Theatre play editor M. Elizabeth Osborn, is given annually to recognize a specific play by an author whose work has not yet received "national stature," which is interpreted to mean that the playwright has not seen a significant New York production, such as Broadway or off-Broadway, has not been widely staged regionally, and has not received any major national award before this one.

Cori Thomas is a native New Yorker who lived in seven countries before returning to the United States, where she studied theater at Marymount Manhattan College. She is a lifetime member of the acting/writing ensemble at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City, and she has been a finalist for a Juilliard Fellowship as well as a nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

When January Feels Like Summer premiered in March, 2010, at City Theatre in Pittsburgh, in a production directed by Chuck Patterson and sponsored in part by the Edgerton Foundation, which provides a fund for new American plays. (You can see the artwork for that production at the top of this blog post.) According to Thomas, the City Theatre production was her first professional production.

The American Theatre Critics Association, which funds and adjudicates the award, describes When January Feels Like Summer as "a comic and touching tale of love, sex, redemption and the survival of the American Dream in the 21st century, amid the struggle with the polar attractions of identity and assimilation. Thomas stirs together a diverse group of urban dwellers on an atypically warm winter month: a middle-aged African American sanitation worker, an East Indian shopkeeper whose husband from a loveless marriage is in a coma, her brother in the midst of a transgender transformation, and two bright homeboys trying to understand everything from global warming to meeting girls. All are on a quest for the healing power of true love, a mythic journey presided over by the Hindu god Ganesh, lord of the removal of obstacles."

Congratulations, Cori Thomas!

Something's Cooking at IWU's "Spitfire Grill"

“The Spitfire Grill” has a curious history. A Roman Catholic organization trying to find a good film project with positive, inspirational themes, turned to writer-director Lee David Zlotoff, who had a Hollywood track record from shows like "MacGyver" and "Remington Steele." Zlotoff put together a script they liked, got the movie made for about $6 million, and submitted it to the Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance, this modest little movie was a real audience-pleaser, inciting a bidding war won by Castle Rock Entertainment, the production company founded by Rob Reiner among others.

But once it was released, "Spitfire" was decidedly less successful than Castle Rock anticipated, taking in only $12 million at the box office, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Still, some three years later, James Valcq and Fred Alley thought that the sweet, down-home sensibilities of “The Spitfire Grill” were exactly what they needed for a stage musical project. They changed things around a bit, moving the story from Maine to their native Wisconsin, turning surly “Nahum” into surly “Caleb” (still Biblical but less New England Yankee), trimming the storylines, building a happier ending, and, of course, adding music.

As a musical, “The Spitfire Grill” has been quite a hit, gaining critical raves Off-Broadway in 2001, and becoming “one of the most often-produced new American musicals.” Its official site notes productions “All across the United States, from Canada to the Caribbean, from Korea to Germany, from the UK to Japan.”

The story is a familiar one – there’s just something about small-town cafés that seems to resonate with writers – as it tells us about Percy Talbott, a young woman just released from prison, who shows up in Gilead, Wisconsin, after seeing a travel ad for its fall foliage. Percy is looking for a fresh start, and Joe, the lone cop in Gilead, who is also her new parole officer, steers her to the Spitfire Grill, a hardscrabble diner owned by cranky old Hannah Ferguson, as her only shot at a job.

Hannah’s nephew, the afore-mentioned Caleb, isn’t happy about this imposition on his aunt, and neither is town gossip and postmistress Effie. But Percy sticks around, trying to learn to cook and keep up with the demands of the grill. And after Hannah is injured, Caleb’s wife Shelby also comes on board, and the three women – wounded Percy, flinty Hannah and sweet Shelby – form a strong bond. In the end, Percy and her compatriots are transformed, enlightened and renewed by that bond, bringing a sense of hope back to Gilead.

Director Nicholas Reinhart, a graduating senior in the Music Theatre program at IWU, notes in the program that he wasn’t sure about the potential of “The Spitfire Grill.” “Upon first look,” Reinhart writes, “I couldn’t get past the twang of its folk score, the down-home mentality of its characters, or even its over-the-top, Hallmark card ending.” But then he realized that at its heart, “Spitfire” is about family and kinship, about building a support system with the people around you, no matter whose biology matches whose. So, yes, the script may be somewhat sentimental, with plot points and second-act revelations that you can see coming a mile off, but it also struck a chord for a graduating senior putting on his last show with his Wesleyan family.

“The Spitfire Grill” is not a big musical, and Reinhart’s staging choices make it fit nicely in IWU’s black box Laboratory Theatre, with a fairly simple but charming set, including a plain wooden floor, woodsy backdrop, one screen door, and some rolling set pieces moved by the cast members as they enter and exit, from Scenic Designer Aaron O’Neill.

Laura Williams makes a very pretty and tuneful Percy; her soaring vocals are lovely throughout, and it’s hard not to fall in love with Kate Rozycki’s warm, engaging take on her new friend Shelby.

Erika Lecaj deserves some kind of award for versatility, successfully tackling cantankerous old Hannah in this show after loopy Princess Winnifred in “Once Upon a Mattress” last fall and Eleanor Roosevelt in IWU’s “Lucky Nurse” a month ago. It’s always tough for college-age actors to play senior citizens, but Lecaj does yeoman work here, using a very different singing voice than she used for sparkling Winnifred, making it work across the board.

There’s no Musical Director credited in the program, so I am guessing that Reinhart did that, too, using a trio (keyboards, cello and violin) to play Valcq’s score, which includes country-folk tunes as well as lots of power ballads. With this show and “Big” last January under his belt, Reinhart has certainly earned his stripes along with highlighting the depth of the musical theatre program at Illinois Wesleyan.

THE SPITFIRE GRILL
Music by James Valcq, lyrics by Fred Alley, and book by James Valcq and Fred Alley.
Based on the film written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff.

E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre at Illinois Wesleyan University

Director: Nicholas Reinhart
Scenic Designer: Aaron O’Neill
Costume Designer: Caiti Frantzis
Lighting Designer: Curtis C. Trout

Cast: Laura Williams, Kate Rozycki, Erika Lecaj, Ben Mulgrew, Andrew Temkin, Roz Prickel, Adam Walleser.

Running time: 2:05, including one 10-minute intermission

Remaining performances: May 21 at 8 pm and May 22 at 2 pm

Tickets: $3 for General Admission and $2 for Students with valid ID. For reservations, call the McPherson Theatre box office at 309-556-3232.

Hither and Yon: One State, Titanic, Spitfire and The African Queen

Some reminders and updates on things happening in the area...

First, One State Together in the Arts is coming to Bloomington-Normal May 23 and 24 and you can still register at their site or, if you don't get it done today, at the door when the conference opens on Monday at the Uptown Normal Marriott. One State is an annual conference put together by the Illinois Arts Council and Arts Alliance Illinois, offering arts administrators as well as artists, educators, students and community leaders the opportunity to connect, network, keep up with new developments, find creativity and inspiration, and renew their commitment to the arts in Illinois.

With a slate that includes Bruce Mau, "world-leading visionary, designer, and author" as the keynote speaker, award-winning playwright Tanya Saracho ("Our Lady of the Underpass") and Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon, the One State experience is brimming with opportunities and information for anybody connected to the arts. There are also walking tours to introduce out-of-town guests to Bloomington-Normal galleries, artists, performers and theaters.

That's next Monday and Tuesday, but this week, you have four opportunities left to catch "Titanic" at Community Players, four chances to see Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" at the Normal Theater, and three chances to see "Spitfire Grill" at Illinois Wesleyan (click here for more information or reservations.) "Spitfire" is the last show of Wesleyan's season and your last chance to see the talented members of the Class of '11 in action.