Wisey recap: 2009 was a great year for local theater

A recap of the Wisey winners for 2009, with links to their award posts:

Best Play: Equivocation by Bill Cain
Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Bill Rauch. Bill Rauch, artistic director.

Best Actor:  Charles Leggett, The Merchant of Venice, Seattle Shakespeare Company

Best Actress:  Carolyn Marie Monroe, End Days, Seattle Public Theatre

Best Supporting Actor:  Ray Tagavilla, Elephant's Graveyard, Balagan Theatre

Best Supporting Actress:  Hana Lass, The Tempest, Seattle Shakespeare Company

Best Director:  Ryan Higgins, The Comedy of Errors, GreenStage

Best Writer:  Bill Cain, Equivocation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival


Best Clown: All of them, especially Mark Bedard, The Servant of Two Masters, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Best Set:  Sunday in the Park with George, 5th Avenue Theatre. Projection design, Timothy Byrd and the Knifedge Creative Network. David Farley, set design.

Best Music:  Elephant's Graveyard, Balagan Theatre. Jake Groshong, musical director.

Best Costume:  The Comedy of Errors, GreenStage. Janessa Jayne Styck, costume designer.

Best Understudy: Jake Groshong, The Full Monty, Balagan Theatre

The Show Must Go On Award: Book-It Repertory Theatre, A Confederacy of Dunces

All-around Cool Theatre Guy Award: Shawn Belyea

Best-play front-runners Equivocation and Elephant's Graveyard received the most Wiseys, two each. Graveyard had the most nominations, seven. Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Balagan Theatre were the companies most honored, each taking home three Wiseys. What great fun to reminisce about a year of great theater!

Wisey Best Play: Equivocation

The nominees for best play of 2009 are:

End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Seattle Public Theatre. Directed by Carol Roscoe. Shana Bestock, artistic director.

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Seattle Shakespeare Company. Directed by John Langs. Stephanie Shine, artistic director.

Equivocation by Bill Cain
Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Bill Rauch. Bill Rauch, artistic director.

Elephant's Graveyard by George Brant
Balagan Theatre. Directed by Jason Harber. Jake Groshong, executive director, Lisa Confehr, managing director.

Opus by Michael Hollinger
Seattle Repertory Theatre. Directed by Braden Abraham. Jerry Manning, producing artistic director.

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
GreenStage. Directed by Ryan Higgins. Ken Holmes, producing artistic director.

Our Wisey-winning best play of the year had it all: a strong, talented cast, a sock-you-in-the-gut story, lighthearted moments, marvelous staging, and wonderful costuming. It was a theater experience that will stick in memory for a long, long time. That description is completely apt for both of what were our two Wisey finalists, Elephant's Graveyard by Balagan Theatre and Equivocation by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Ultimately it was Best-Writer-Wisey-winner Bill Cain's amazing script and story that gave Equivocation the slightest edge and the trophy in a close contest between two incredible, well-told stories.

We've spilled a lot of words here about Equivocation. Weisenheimer and Sweetie both wrote reviews after seeing it in Ashland, and the gushing might have been a tip that the play was on its way to this award: "The most mind-blowingly fantastic theater Weisenheimer has experienced in a while... incredibly clever writing and joyous language. It's an astounding piece of work." Sweetie wrote in her post on Cain's best-writer Wisey that Equivocation is "intricate without ever getting bogged down; clever without ever being trite; ambitious without ever getting lost... this is an important and enjoyable play—and that's not an easy combination to strike." What a great show. The OSF production was its world premiere, it made an encore performance for a month at the Seattle Rep, and now folks all over the country are falling all over themselves to produce it.

I'm proud as hell of my friends at Balagan Theatre for being right up there with the Equivocation juggernaut with their spectacular staging of Elephant's Graveyard. It has been oft written on these pages, though not in any of our Wisey posts, that Weisenheimer is the board chair at Balagan, but it doesn't make him biased. Sweetie and I, in fact, kicked around the idea that the connection might be creating an anti-Balagan bias. I don't think so; we gave Elephant's the most nominations, seven, of any show all year. But it's true that others got the nod in a couple of close calls over Balagan nominees, particularly in the best play and best actress categories. Kudos to all of y'all at Balagan. For the record I'll note they're all volunteers. As board chair, I invite all readers to give us lots of money so we can pay these talented folks!

Hardly also-rans, End Days, Merchant of Venice, Opus, and The Comedy of Errors were all great shows. 2009 was a super year for theater. We thank all of the talented people who make it happen.

Wisey Best Actress: Carolyn Marie Monroe

The nominees for best actress are:

Carolyn Marie Monroe, End Days, Seattle Public Theatre
Terri Weagant, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Balagan Theatre
Anne Allgood, Rock 'n' Roll, ACT
Robin Goodrin Nordli, Macbeth, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Tracy Hyland, Just Drink It, 14/48

And the Wisey for best actress of 2009 goes to Carolyn Marie Monroe for her portrayal of Rachel Stein, an exasperated, super-bright goth teenager, in the Seattle Public Theater production of End Days.

While we listed five nominees this was really just a tough choice between two great actresses. Monroe was terrific as Rachel, the normal one in a dysfunctional family. She nailed the teen thing, with just the right mix of confident brass and emotional insecurity. (That's her as Rachel in the John Ulman photo at right.) She's a marvelous young performer. We've enjoyed her recent roles as Opehlia in Hamlet at GreenStage and as Miranda in The Tempest at Seattle Shakespeare Company. She was fun in last summer's 14/48 festival as well. We're looking forward to seeing more of Monroe.

Weagant was spectacular as the bag lady Trudy, and a zillion other characters, in Search for Signs at Balagan. Like Monroe, Weagant is playing a lot around town and we love it all. She was great as Desdemona in Othello last year, also at Balagan, and hosts Schmorgasborg, the company's monthly late-night theatre mash-up. Members of Theatre Puget Sound agree with us about Weagant; they voted her their member's voice award for best actress back in October. We hear she's landed a role in Cider House Rules at Book-It this summer.

Thumbs up to two great veteran actresses. Robin Goodrin Nordli, 2008 best actress for The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, turned in a splendid performance as Lady Macbeth at OSF last season. Anne Allgood was marvelous in a couple of roles in ACT's Rock 'n' Roll. Tracy Hyland was memorable in the hot, sexy Just Drink It at 14/48 in August.

Wisey Best Supporting Actor: Ray Tagavilla

The nominees for best supporting actor are:

Michael D. Blum, The Comedy of Errors, GreenStage

Kevin Kenerly, Macbeth, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

John Tufts, Equivocation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Evan Woltz, The Full Monty, Balagan Theatre

Peter Dylan O'Connor, The Tempest, Seattle Shakespeare Company

Todd Jefferson Moore, Opus, Seattle Rep

Ray Tagavilla, Elephant's Graveyard, Balagan Theatre

Seanjohn Walsh, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Balagan Theatre; general fabulousness, 14/48

Patrick Bentley, The Comedy of Errors, GreenStage

I know. That's a lot of nominees. And the thing is, this is the narrowed down list, after much arm-wrestling between the Weisenheimer and Sweetie ("every time I lose a wrestling match, I have the funny feeling that I won..."). We toyed with splitting the year in half...or nominating by quarter...or by section of the alphabet...

What a problem, right? Great performances in great plays all year long. In the end, the well-deserved award goes to Ray Tagavilla for his riveting performance in Elephant's Graveyard at Balagan Theatre.

We saw Elephant's three times during the run, and one of the three nights I thought Ray was a tiny bit off his stride—and he was still fantastic. The role of the elephants' Trainer is the fulcrum on which the play's gut-wrenching plot pivots and lurches. He and Ballet Girl know Mary the elephant the best; the Trainer has the additional burden of responsibility for Mary and what happens to her. His agony at the events and his role in them, and in what he has to do for Mary at her death, fills the stage even when the lines and action are elsewhere. Tagavilla's performance is precise and tightly controlled—well-edited, if you will, nothing extraneous—so that every nuance of gesture, posture, tear, and grimace is pure, focused emotion, and utterly believable. We've been impressed with everything we've seen from Tagavilla, and his work in Elephant's was outstanding.

I thought Kevin Kenerly pretty much redeemed Macbeth at OSF this year. His performance made the play human. And we think John Tufts' career is one to watch. Michael Blum was nominated for Comedy of Errors but could as easily have been nominated for the role of Ringmaster in Elephant's, with the perfect gravitas to anchor the ensemble cast. Patrick Bentley embodied comedy (in Comedy of Errors) and tragedy (Titus Andronicus) this year for GreenStage. Evan Woltz might have turned in the most sensitive acting performance of the great, brave cast in The Full Monty. Peter Dylan O'Connor was an otherworldly and creepy Caliban in Tempest. Todd Jefferson Moore hit all the right notes in Opus. And we had to include Seanjohn Walsh for an unforgettable trio of performances across the lifespan: a dirty old man in Picasso at Balagan, a totally out of control little kid in A Whole Mess of Badgers at 14/48, and, yes, six-months pregnant in Six Months In, also at 14/48.

Wisey Best Supporting Actress: Hana Lass

The nominees for best supporting actress are:

LaChrista Borgers, The Best Daddy, Balagan Theatre
Kjerstine Rose Anderson, The Servant of Two Masters, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Hana Lass, The Tempest, Seattle Shakespeare Company
Nicole Vernon, Titus Andronicus, GreenStage
Allison Strickland, Elephant's Graveyard, Balagan Theatre
Ellen McLain, A Confederacy of Dunces, Book-It

The Wisey for best supporting actress for 2009 goes to Hana Lass, who was marvelous as Ariel in the Seattle Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest.

This was a tough call with some wonderful actresses turning in super performances. In the end, we fell back on the four words any theater reviewer should remember: Hana Lass kicks ass.

Lass combined an enormous singing voice, that amazing costume, and a marvelous presence on stage to create a memorable Ariel in The Tempest, perhaps the best show that didn't get a best play nomination this year (despite the fact that it got best actor, supporting actor, supporting actress, and clown nominations, and a best actress nominee was in it as well, though that nomination was for a different play). Lass and Michael Winters as Prospero were an incredibly electric duo. It wasn't a factor in the decision, but Lass was also great in the 14/48 play A Mess of Badgers. That's her as Ariel at right in a Seattle Shakes photo by John Ulman.

Lass won the vote by a bustle over Allison Strickland, fantastic as Ballet Girl in Elephant's Graveyard at Balagan Theatre, and Ellen McLain, who was a great foil as mom opposite Brandon Whitehead as Ignatius Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces at Book-It. We also have to do shout-outs for LaChrista Borgers, memorable in the incredibly sick The Best Daddy, part of the first Death/Sex at Balagan, and Nicole Vernon, who kept in character through all of that blood in the GreenStage indoor production of Titus Andronicus. Kjerstine Rose Anderson is one of the great utility players at OSF. She was hilarious in its production of Servant.

Wisey Best Director: Ryan Higgins, The Comedy of Errors

The nominees for best director are:

Ryan Higgins, The Comedy of Errors, GreenStage
Bill Rauch, Equivocation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Jake Groshong, The Full Monty, Balagan Theatre
Jason Harber, Elephant's Graveyard, Balagan Theatre
Tyrone Brown, Mr. Jibbers, 14/48
Brian Faker, Just Drink It, 14/48
Sam Hagen, The Only Leg He's Got, Death/Sex I, Balagan Theatre
Terri Weagant, The Best Daddy, Death/Sex I, Balagan Theatre

And the winner of the Wisey for best director of 2009 is Ryan Higgins for his marvelous work on The Comedy of Errors for GreenStage.

For some reason we didn't do a best director award for  2008, the first year for the Wiseys. Maybe we didn't have the budget or something. Had we done a director award, Ryan Higgins (at right in a photo by Jake Groshong) may well have won it for his fabulous Othello at Balagan Theatre. Higgins again demonstrated his grasp of the Bard with Comedy of Errors. As my Sweetie, the official scorer, noted in her post on the Best Costume Wisey, also won by Comedy, Higgins did pretty much everything exactly right. He's got a great knack both for understanding the text and for seeing the new possibilities therein. His decision to add to the confusion of Comedy by cross-casting worked marvelously, and he got great performances out of a well-chosen and talented cast. Shakespeare in the park can be a challenge, but Higgins and crew were up to the task in one of the most entertaining productions of the year.

Higgins was an actor in Balagan's hit production of Elephant's Graveyard, for which director Jason Harbor also received a Wisey nomination. Harber's decision to keep the entire cast on stage for the entire play really worked, and the play was an emotional punch in the gut. Jake Groshong received a nomination for another Balagan show, The Full Monty, which also won great critical reviews. The "turntable" stage was especially inspired, and Groshong assembled a great cast that had a lot of fun on a supremely entertaining production. Bill Rauch created a marvelous Equivocation that ran for eight months at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, then did a month-long encore at the Seattle Rep.

We had a long list of best-director nominees mostly because we wanted a chance to do a shout-out for those who created some marvelous one-act plays as part of either 14/48 or Balagan's Death/Sex. Weisenheimer is still haunted by Tyrone Brown's Mr. Jibbers, and Sam Hagen, Terri Weagant, and Brian Faker also delivered memorable plays. Higgins stood a little taller than the rest and is one of our favorite directors in town.

Wisey Best Clown: All of them! Especially Mark Bedard, OSF

The nominations for best clown are:

Chris Ensweiler, The Servant of Two Masters, Seattle Shakespeare Company

Chris Bell, Elephant's Graveyard, Balagan Theatre

Mark Bedard, The Servant of Two Masters, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Orion Protonentis, Titus Andronicus, GreenStage

Kerry Ryan, The Tempest and The Servant of Two Masters, Seattle Shakespeare Company

Fanny Tragic, Schmorgasborg, Balagan Theatre

Matt Hornbeck, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Theater Schmeater

Armando Duran, All's Well That Ends Well, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

We saw a wonderful variety of clowns this year showcasing the role of clown in theater, so we just had to create a special new category just for 2009 of "best clown." These clowns are physical, corporeal, and acrobatic, as likely to do their thing with pantomime and juggling and other physical arts as with speech. They're usually disguised or masked. In some way, they're outside or aside of the community portrayed in the play, which often means they're interacting with the audience in a way the other characters aren't. They may be of another place or no place or are traveling from or to somewhere else (as in the tradition of the tramp or hobo clown). They're transgressors; they break boundaries and rules, they're outrageous and uninhibited tricksters, they interrupt and disrupt, and do and say things no one else can. And all of that together is why they bother us, scare us, and make us laugh.

Armando Duran played the clown in All's Well That Ends Well at Oregon Shakespeare Festival as an observer in the hobo/tramp tradition, and figured prominently in the play's somewhat surprise ending. He was revealed through "home movies" as reliving and reflecting on Helena and Bertram's story—his deceased parents—as he picks up a suitcase and leaves the stage.

Kerry Ryan was nominated as much for her clown skills and talents as for the roles she played. We saw her as Trinculo the jester in The Tempest and Smeraldina in The Servant of Two Masters, both at Seattle Shakespeare Company (and we just saw her again at this past week's 14/48: The World's Quickest Theatre Festival). Her physical clowning and comedy are terrific, and the program confirms that she is an experienced puppeteer, dancer, and physical comedian. It shows.

Matt Hornbeck gets special mention for stamina and endurance as Klaus, the Apprentice in Theater Schmeater's outdoor The Sorcerer's Apprentice this summer. He was equal to all of the audience interaction, and it was especially fun to see him engaging the little kids.

Funniest clown EVER was burlesque clown Fanny Tragic in two routines at Schmorgasborg, Balagan Theatre's late-night theater mash-up. One routine involved an air-inflated Peeps costume, but the one that really had me splitting my sides was the snuggie strip tease. Unforgettable!

We saw some disturbing clowns, too. As a child I was afraid of a clown portrait that hung in a relative's house. Now that imagine is supplanted by Orion Protonentis, playing Aaron in Titus Andronicus (GreenStage, indoors), as a particularly evil, maniacal clown. He was funny and horrifying and creepy and irresistible.

And Chris Bell was the most moving clown of all, playing a circus clown in Balagan Theatre's Elephant's Graveyard. That makeup really runs when tears are streaming down his face, and I loved the way his physicality was so often directed to producing sounds which became part of the score of the play.

Chris Ensweiler was delightful as Truffaldino in Seattle Shakes' The Servant of Two Masters, a classic commedia dell'arte Harlequin role, playing off his fellow cast members with perfect timing.

We were lucky enough to see Servant twice this year, and in a tough decision, the nod for Best Clown of 2009 goes to Mark Bedard as Truffaldino in Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production. His performance was physically demanding, funny, and commanding. He was perfectly in character and self-referentially funny as he encountered our particular Saturday afternoon performance's surprises, including a cell phone dropped on stage, an audience member who tried to be as funny as Bedard (he wasn't), and some wayward fake blood.

A big thanks to all our clowns this year and the companies and productions that tickled us with these smart, funny, naughty roles.

Wisey special awards

Some theater events don't fit well into a standard award category, but are so fabulous and memorable, or not, that they deserve some recognition. We have three special Wiseys for performance above and beyond, and one Wisey Razzie for raspberry-worthy crumminess. The special Wiseys:

BEST UNDERSTUDY: JAKE GROSHONG
Jake Groshong is executive director at Balagan Theatre and directed its supremely entertaining production of The Full Monty in November. The show was playing to sold-out houses throughout its run, but as the final weekend approached actress Ashley Flannegan, who played Jeanette Burmeister, came down with something akin to swine flu. What to do? Cancel the performances and refund four packed theaters worth of tickets? NEVER! Groshong did what any intrepid ED and director would have done: stepped into the role, and the dress, and played Jeanette himself! The show must go on! As you can see from musical director Kim Dare's photo at right, Groshong makes a damn attractive woman. And he made some of Jeanette's lines (e.g. her comment on a proposed frisking: "You DON'T want to go THERE!") take on a whole new meaning. Thanks to the power of the Internet, this photo will live on for eons to come.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON: A Confederacy of Dunces, Book-It
Speaking of the show going on, the performance of Dunces we saw at Book-It had a surprise ending. With about five minutes left in the show, a fire alarm went off in the Seattle Center House and we all had to evacuate the theater. Audience and actors alike filed out into the buttoned-up arcade area of the Fun Forest. Then suddenly, the end of the play broke out! They picked up the play right where it left off and finished it up for an appreciative crowd. That's Brandon Whitehead and Samara Lerman in the Weisenheimer photo of the final scene at right. The fire alarm turned out to be a false one, but it made a memorable end to a fine play. Dunces, like The Full Monty, barely missed the cut when the Best Play nominees were chosen.

COOL ALL-AROUND THEATER GUY: Shawn Belyea
Shawn Belyea was part of a marvelous cast in the Best-Play-nominated Opus at Seattle Rep, directed Balagan's hilarious Picasso at the Lapin Agile in May, and recently became the company's co-artistic director. But we at Weisenheimer love him most for an amazing event that, somehow, we never discovered until last summer: 14/48, the world's quickest theater festival. Belyea is a producer and member of the steering committee for 14/48, which is spectacular theater fun. The photo is a Groshong shot of Belyea stolen shamelessly from Facebook. Forget Christmas. For anyone interested in theater, 14/48 is the best time of the year! And it's just around the corner, playing Jan. 8, 9, 15, and 16 at ACT. Don't miss it.

WORST PLAY RAZZIE: Othello at Intiman
Weisenheimer has of late been accused of being overly positive, and it may well be true that, like Eric Idle, I always look on the bright side of life. Theater dominates our blog, and we tend to write much more about what was good about what we've seen than we have about what didn't work. The one exception to this has been our criticism of Intiman Theatre, which has been mostly disappointing for years now. The "New York" production of Othello they brought in last year had everything from the "acclaimed" East Coast production but the three lead characters. Boo! We couldn't resist one last shot. Here's hoping things pick up at Intiman with a new artistic director.

Wisey Best Costume: Comedy of Errors, GreenStage

The nominees for best costume are:

Titus Andronicus, GreenStage. Janessa Jayne Styck, costume designer.
The Comedy of Errors, GreenStage. Janessa Jayne Styck, costume designer.
The Servant of Two Masters, Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Christal Weatherly, costume designer.
A Confederacy of Dunces, Book-It. Doris Black, costume designer.

And the winner of 2009's best costume goes to Comedy of Errors, GreenStage, Janessa Jayne Styck, costume designer.

Comedy of Errors directed this summer by Ryan Higgins did pretty much everything exactly right, and costumes were no exception. Cross-staging and cross-dressing take some effort and imagination and everyone pulled it off with panache. I won't soon forget Michael Blum in Marge Simpson pink hair and a red dress, or Patrick Bentley and Rio Codda in drag. The Dromio twins really did look alike, which was partly magnificent casting (where did Higgins find Adria LaMorticella and Esra Chelen Guler? They were fantastic!) but also meticulous costuming. The comedy in this production is very, very physical (it has to be in Errors, doesn't it?) and the costumes—or should I say fabrications?—by Janessa Jayne Styck held up. 

It's gotta be tempting and easy for directors to set C of E somewhere...anywhere...other than the neighborhood of 1594 England. We recently saw it set at the OK Corral at OSF. Well, okay. Higgins played it straight (ahem) and showed what could be done with Shakespeare's early effort by wringing every puerile gag out of it from within the tradition of 16th century, outdoor, raucous comedy. Bravo.

We saw two shows with pink hair this year. Christal Weatherly and the costume department at Oregon Shakespeare Festival clearly had a great time with The Servant of Two Masters. The New Theatre was a great venue for seeing all the details up close, from the patchwork of Truffaldino's coat (which incorporated a brassiere cup as a handy pocket) to Whipped Cream & Other Delights as headwear to the quickest costume change in theater to get Beatrice into a dress. We even had fake blood! (Is theater gore part of the costume or props department? hmm.)

Speaking of theater gore, GreenStage's Titus Andronicus also gets a nomination for costuming everyone in fake blood. And I mean everyone, including the audience. One poor soul wore white and sat in the front row...irresistable to the actors armed with fake-blood-squirty-devices (is there a technical name for that? somebody help me out here...). The costumes were pretty simple (they're just going to get soaked) except for Aaron's as an elaborate clown costume. GreenStage doesn't have anything like the budget of OSF, I presume, but Janessa Jayne Styck does the absolute most with what they have.

A Confederacy of Dunces at Book-It Repertory Theatre relied heavily on its costume department because the story is so much about how the characters are presenting themselves and the different personas they try on. Doris Black did a great job. The attention to detail and faithfulness to the book were superb. The costumes were funny and perfectly suited the characters, in their outrageous ill-fitting way.

Wisey Best Set: Sunday in the Park With George, 5th Avenue

The nominees for best set for 2009 were:

A Comedy of Errors, GreenStage. Ryan Higgins, director. Laura Garcia, properties designer.

Equivocation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Christopher Acebo, scenic designer.

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Balagan Theatre. Ed Cook III, technical director. Jen Butler, set designer. Terri Weagant, shopping cart builder.

Sunday in the Park with George, 5th Avenue Theatre. Projection design, Timothy Byrd and the Knifedge Creative Network. David Farley, set design.

Don Quixote, Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Lynn Jeffries, puppet designer.

The 5th Avenue Theatre team wins the Wisey for its brilliant set for Sunday in the Park With George.

A part of Weisenheimer wants to handicap the relatively affluent big houses in the Wisey competition because of the resources they bring to the stage. A set piece for one scene at 5th Avenue or OSF might cost more than the whole year's budget at GreenStage or Balagan. But 5th Avenue deserves the nod for the clever, creative set for Sunday in the Park. When one walked into the auditorium, the set was merely three plain white walls. But when the lights went down and the projection system kicked in, magic happened. The walls came alive with the art of George Seurat, as he was creating it. Animated characters interacted with the human ones, too. And in Seurat's studio the painter was behind his canvas, a semi-transparent curtain lit so we could see both the artist and the work he was creating. Marvelous!

A few of the runners-up deserve mention. At Balagan Terri Weagant not only played Trudy and a zillion other characters in Search for Signs well enough to earn a best actress nomination, she built the shopping-cart spaceship to boot. The GreenStage production of The Comedy of Errors was truly minimalist in a classic sense. The only scene beside the outdoor parks was a tent with multiple entrances that served as several locations, including dressing room. Just like the wandering troupes used to do it.

A special nod to OSF for its use of puppets in Don Quixote. The valiant steeds of Quixote and Sancho Panza, and several other characters, were played with puppets to great effect. We've seen several great examples of the physical side of theater in the past year, with clowns and puppets, and the OSF puppetry was carried off especially well.

Elephant's Graveyard leads pack with seven Wisey nominations

The production of Elephant's Graveyard by Balagan Theatre leads the pack with seven nominations for the second annual Weisenheimer Awards, given by the crack staff at West Seattle Weisenheimer for excellence in theater. Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Equivocation, which also had a run at the Seattle Rep, and the GreenStage production of The Comedy of Errors, are right behind Elephant's Graveyard with six Wisey nominations each.

The Wisey nomination committee added a new category this year, Best Clown, in recognition of the number of truly great clown performances during 2009. Nominations come from among the 81 productions Weisenheimer and my Sweetie, the official scorer, attended during 2009.

Wisey winners will be announced over the next few weeks. The nominees are:

BEST PLAY
End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Seattle Public Theatre. Directed by Carol Roscoe. Shana Bestock, artistic director.
Sweetie review

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Seattle Shakespeare Company. Directed by John Langs. Stephanie Shine, artistic director.
Weisenheimer review

Equivocation by Bill Cain
Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Bill Rauch. Bill Rauch, artistic director.
Weisenheimer review and Sweetie review

Elephant's Graveyard by George Brant
Balagan Theatre. Directed by Jason Harber. Jake Groshong, executive director, Lisa Confehr, managing director.
Weisenheimer review

Opus by Michael Hollinger
Seattle Repertory Theatre. Directed by Braden Abraham. Jerry Manning, producing artistic director.
Weisenheimer review

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
GreenStage. Directed by Ryan Higgins. Ken Holmes, producing artistic director.
Weisenheimer review

BEST ACTOR
Charles Leggett, The Merchant of Venice, Seattle Shakespeare Company
Michael Winters, The Tempest, Seattle Shakespeare Company
Jonathan Haugen, Equivocation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Brandon Whitehead, A Confederacy of Dunces, Book-It Repertory Theatre
Allen Fitzpatrick, Opus, Seattle Repertory Theatre
Mark Fullerton, Mr. Jibbers, 14/48

BEST ACTRESS
Carolyn Marie Monroe, End Days, Seattle Public Theatre
Terri Weagant, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Balagan Theatre
Anne Allgood, Rock 'n' Roll, ACT
Robin Goodrin Nordli, Macbeth, Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Tracy Hyland, Just Drink It, 14/48

Wisey best play: Hedda; Louis & Keely

The nominees for best play for 2008 were:

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams
Intiman Theatre. Directed by Sheila Daniels. Bartlett Sher, artistic director.

The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, by Jeff Whitty
Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Bill Rauch. Bill Rauch, artistic director.

Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara, by Vanessa Claire Smith and Jake Broder
Matrix Theatre. Directed by Jeremy Aldridge. Originally produced by Sacred Fools Theater Company.

The vote was a tie, and Wiseys go to Further Adventures and Louis & Keely.

Weisenheimer cast his vote for Further Adventures in a very close call over L&K. As I ponder it some months after seeing them, both are still vivid and fresh in my memory. They carry some similar themes, too, about the sacrifices and pitfalls involved in making art and about the difficulty of change. Both also featured marvelous acting performances from top to bottom, but Further Adventures has a slight edge here, with Wisey-winning performances by Robin Goodrin Nordli in the title role and by Anthony Heald and Jonathan Haugen. Further Adventures also rode the might of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in terms of marvelous costuming and a fabulous set. This, to me, gave it a slight edge over Louis & Keely, also a most memorable play.

Props, too, to Streetcar. Blanche and Stella were absolutely marvelous. A stronger Stanley might have pushed this production right up there with the first two.

======

This is Sweetie, here: This is the second Wisey for Louis & Keely, winners of Best Music. The Weisenheimer reviewed L&K here. I loved Hedda too, and am delighted to see new artistic director Bill Rauch push the envelope a bit in his first season at OSF (OSF's envelope can really use some pushing). And the inside jokes were fun.

But L&K gets my Wisey vote because it is the whole, well-crafted package. It is a beautifully written and stunningly perfomed story of art, the public and private, love, and regret. Credit to Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith for co-authoring and performing as Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

It is so unlikely that I would ever have seen this treasure. First of all, it's a musical. Not usually my favorite thing. Secondly, it played at the tiny Matrix Theatre in West Hollywood. We live in Seattle. But we had the good fortune to be visiting friends with excellent taste (In theater. And friends.) who had seen it once already and took us.

We do like music, of course, and we have often enjoyed theater events which showcase music, but which aren't really plays. This was a play -- a great story, a tragedy (more Shakespearean than Aristotelian), dramatic (in the best sense of the word), where the music happens to be as inseparable to the story as the protagonist. The top-notch musicians were in character -- and they are a smokin-hot band. Broder and Smith have internalized every nuance from every bit of recorded material there is on Louis and Keely, but this is not merely to imitate. They are portraying all-to-human characters in all of their chemistry and conflict. Smith's cool-sultry Keely had me wondering all night what she was going to do next, while Broder's goofy Louis had an intensity and edgy darkness that was a little rattling from my front row seat two feet away.

I depart from the Weisenheimer in being more impressed with the intimacy and vulnerability of the spare and tiny black box theater at the Matrix over the props and costume department of OSF (disclosure: could I have been influenced by having been handed the boutonniere?). In L&K, you will be involved. You will not be able to watch this show without tapping your feet, applauding, laughing, and staring into Louis Prima's eyes. As Broder says, the story is "a lover's triangle where the third party is the audience." That's you at this show.

According to their Web site, "A new engagement of LOUIS & KEELY is coming to Los Angeles later in 2009." Watch the Web site, buy a plane ticket, and go!

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.

Wisey Best Actress: Robin Goodrin Nordli

The nominees for best actress for 2008 were:

Marianne Owen as multiple characters in Intimate Exchanges. ACT Theatre.
Angela Pierce as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Intiman Theatre.
Robin Goodrin Nordli as Hedda Gabler in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Vanessa Claire Smith as Keely Smith in Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara. Matrix Theatre.
Chelsey Rives as Jo in boom. Seattle Repertory Theatre.

The Wisey goes to Robin Goodrin Nordli, who has played Hedda Gabler twice at OSF: In 2003 in the Henrik Ibsen play of the same name, and last year in Further Adventures. She's clearly gotten inside the head of the manipulative and morose (it is Ibsen, after all) late-19th Century Norwegian woman. What a scary place to be!

The Hedda of Further Adventures vows to break out of that and be happy, as you'll note from the photo of Nordli at the right. How she got my Sweetie, the scorer's smiley mug I do not know. Nordli was marvelous in a wide range of emotions: depression, anger, giddiness, resignation, and, most impressively to Weisenheimer, great comedic timing in this new take on a classic character.

Best actress was one of the toughest calls of the Wiseys, as there were a great many wonderful performances. Vanessa Claire Smith as Keely Smith in Louis & Keely was a singing and acting marvel. Angela Pierce turned in an amazing and subtle Blance DuBois in Streetcar at Intiman. Marianne Owen was engaging as several characters in Intimate Exchanges at ACT. Caught in the cross-rough of categories and tough competition was Chelsey Rives, nominated both here for boom at the Rep and for supporting actress for her strong, bawdy Stella in Streetcar. She deserves a new category for strong, multiple performances, though Vilma Silva may still have aced her out.

Nordli brings home the best actress Wisey for a memorable performance in a fresh and fascinating new play. We're looking forward to seeing her as Lady Macbeth at OSF this year.

Wisey Best Supporting Actor: Heald and Haugen

The nominees for best supporting actor for 2008 were:

Matthew Ahrens as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Green Stage.
Michael Elich as Aufidius in Coriolanus. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Anthony Heald as Steven in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Jonathan Haugen as Patrick in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Wisey goes to Anthony Heald and Jonathan Haugen.

To give a single Wisey to either actor would be like giving an award to Rosencrantz and snubbing Guildenstern. Heald and Haugen played Steven and Patrick, two stereotypical gay characters modeled after The Boys in the Band, in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler at OSF. They are beautifully drawn characters marvelously acted, providing lots of wit, bitchy commentary, and a substantial dose of the play's wisdom as well. Prancing around in their pastel bell-bottoms and vests, Patrick and Steven help the characters in their quest to break out of their stereotypical molds. Several succeed, though the duo does not because, while roaming the mind of their creator, they were sidetracked by an open bar.

Ahrens was marvelously besotted as Sir Toby in Green Stage's Twelfth Night. He may have won the Wisey if he hadn't nearly spilled our wine! The characters often took refuge in the audience in this Shakespeare in the park performance. Elich was a menacing and athletic Aufidius in the seldom-performed Coriolanus.

But Heald and Haugen were shining stars giving memorable performances in a great play and take home the Wisey for best supporting actor.

Wisey Best Music: Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara

The nominees for best music for 2008 were:

Jersey Boys at 5th Avenue Theatre. Ron Melrose, musical direction.
A Marvelous Party at ACT Theatre. Richard Grey, musical director.
Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara at Matrix Theatre. Musical direction by Dennis Kaye.
Black Nativity at Intiman Theatre. Musical direction and arrangements by Pastor Patrinell Wright.

The Wisey goes to Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara. This was the consensus pick for the "Best Music" Weisenheimer Award for several reasons, first and foremost of which is that I had "I Got You Under My Skin" rattling around in my head for weeks afterward, and not in a horrible, it's-a-small-world sort of way.

There are other good reasons, too. Vanessa Claire Smith, Jake Broder, and the faux Sam Butera and the Witnesses are a kick-ass band. Broder and Smith absolutely nail the personas and stage antics of Louis Prima and Keely Smith, whom some credit with virtually inventing the concept of the Vegas lounge act. The musicians are talented and good actors to boot, remaining in character in both their on-stage and off-stage scenes on stage. Fans of Porter, Ellington, Mercer, Gershwin, Arlen, Fields, McHugh, Waller, and a host of others had plenty to enjoy in a show that featured nearly two dozen great numbers.

Colin Kupka was especially marvelous as Butera and on tenor sax, and Dennis Kaye was the musical director for the show and played both tenor and baritone sax as "Doc." The rest of the band -- Brian Wallis (Jimmy/trombone), Jeff Markgraf (Eddie/bass), Richard Levinson (Pee Wee/piano), Michael L. Solomon (Rocco/drums), and "Hollywood" Paul Litteral (Soup/trumpet) were fantastic as well.

The musical and acting abilities of the ensemble and the intimacy of the theater made disbelief was easy to suspend. Weisenheimer didn't really see this show at L.A.'s Matrix Theatre; I think we were actually somehow teleported to the Sahara in Vegas the see Louis and Keely in their definitive lounge act.

Nominee Jersey Boys was in the large 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and the venue worked against them. While the music of Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons was admirably done, it didn't have quite the same impact. Intiman's Black Nativity always entertains, though this year they pulled back a bit on the full-out, floor-stompin' gospel. A Marvelous Party at ACT was a sleeper pick, with a full show of Noel Coward's best material.

But Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara out-did them all and is the winner of the 2008 Wisey for best music.

The Wisey Awards

The theater world will be focused on the West Seattle Weisenheimer for the next week as we name the winners of the Weisenheimer Awards. The Wiseys recognize the best performances in theater productions that Weisenheimer and Sweetie the Scorer saw together during 2008.

The nominees are:

BEST PLAY
A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams
Intiman Theatre. Directed by Sheila Daniels. Bartlett Sher, artistic director.

The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, by Jeff Whitty
Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Bill Rauch. Bill Rauch, artistic director.
WSW review

Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara, by Vanessa Claire Smith and Jake Broder
Matrix Theatre. Directed by Jeremy Aldridge. Originally produced by Sacred Fools Theater Company.
WSW review

BEST ACTOR
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.

BEST ACTRESS
Marianne Owen as multiple characters in Intimate Exchanges. ACT Theatre.
Angela Pierce as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Intiman Theatre.
Robin Goodrin Nordli as Hedda Gabler in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Vanessa Claire Smith as Keely Smith in Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara. Matrix Theatre.
Chelsey Rives as Jo in boom. Seattle Repertory Theatre.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matthew Ahrens as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Green Stage.
Michael Elich as Aufidius in Coriolanus. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Anthony Heald as Steven in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Jonathan Haugen as Patrick in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Chelsey Rives as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Intiman Theatre.
Kimberly Scott as Mammy in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Vilma Silva as Emilia in Othello. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Vilma Silva as Beatrice in A View From the Bridge. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

BEST COSTUMES
Intimate Exchanges at ACT Theatre. Carolyn Keim, costume director.
A Midsummer Night's Dream at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Katherine Roth, costume designer.
The Clay Cart at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Deborah M. Dryden, costume designer.
The Adding Machine at New Century Theatre. Pete Rush, costume designer.

BEST SET
A Midsummer Night's Dream at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Walt Spangler, scenic designer.
Othello at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Rachel Hauck, scenic designer.
boom at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Jennifer Zeyl, set designer.
Othello at Balagan Theatre. Jenna Shmidt, props designer.

BEST MUSIC
Jersey Boys at 5th Avenue Theatre. Ron Melrose, musical direction.
A Marvelous Party at ACT Theatre. Richard Grey, musical director.
Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara at Matrix Theatre. Musical direction by Dennis Kaye.
Black Nativity at Intiman Theatre. Musical direction and arrangements by Pastor Patrinell Wright.