Wisey Best Actor: Dan Donohue

The nominees for best actor for 2008 were:

Shawn Law as Hamlet in Hamlet. Green Stage theater.
Armando Duran as Eddie Carbone in A View From the Bridge. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Dan Donohue as Iago in Othello. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Jake Broder as Louis Prima in Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara. Matrix Theatre.

The Wisey goes to Dan Donohue.

This was the easiest pick for the Wisey selection committee. The only real question was in which category to nominate Donohue -- best actor or supporting actor. On the one hand, the play is named Othello, so the guy playing the Moor should be the lead. On the other, the OSF production was Iago's play, and Donohue was brilliant. That's Donohue on the right in the photo, with Peter Macon as Othello.

As my Sweetie, the Scorer noted in her review of the play in October:

Iago is Shakespeare's best villain and Donohue continually danced right up to the line of making us think there might be some real, human, redeeming, if twisted feeling inside him, before showing us again that he is an inveterate fiend. Donohue was the perfect blend of believably likeable, a little creepy, and wholly malevolent.

Donohue, a wonderful actor playing a delicious role, ran away with the best-actor Wisey.

Props to the other nominees as well. Jake Broder in most years would have taken home the trophy for his high-octane performance as Louis Prima. Armando Durán was intense as the doomed Carbone, and is slated for the title role in Don Quixote at OSF this year. Shawn Law was a great surprise as a highly nuanced Hamlet outdoors at Magnuson Park. But Donohue was truly memorable.