Queen, 1984 tie for top honours at theatre awards
At a gala ceremony Saturday, the drag queen musical Priscilla Queen of the Desert emerged as queen of this year’s community theatre awards.
Staged by Front Row Players, Priscilla went into this year’s competition with a whopping 13 nominations and took home eight awards — making it the lead recipient for the 2017-18 community theatre season.
It was followed closely in the non-musical categories by Scorpio Theatre’s production of a new adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, which won all eight awards for which it was nominated.
Priscilla won the coveted CAT award for outstanding production of a musical and its director Mike Sornberger won for his direction of this story of a trio of drag queens navigating their rickety bus across Australia to a gig in Alice Springs.
Jeffery Follis won for outstanding performance by a lead actor in a musical for his role as Felicia, the youngest and most flamboyant of the drag queens, and his large supporting cast won for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a musical.
Andrea Timmons won a CAT for her musical direction of Priscilla and Stephen Welch and Christine Mooney won for their choreography.
Priscilla also picked up a shared costume award for Magz Ross (costumes), Kristina Burt (makeup) and Lindsay Kurtze (hair) while Steven Eastgaard-Ross took home a CAT award for best special effects and sound.
Also in the musical theatre division, Front Row Centre’s production of The Pajama Game notched several awards. Ginette Simonot and Janos Zeller were named best supporting performers in a musical for their roles in the vintage musical while Tannis Laatsch won for her lead performance as Catherine Williams.
Front Row Centre also notched an award for its musical Dogfight, winning Jody Low a CAT for her lighting design.
Scorpio Theatre’s production of 1984 won CAT awards for outstanding production of a play and a directing award for Matt Pickering. Darcy Wilson won for his lead performance in 1984 as Winston, the victim of a Thought Police investigation and subsequent reprogramming. This visually stunning production of 1984 also captured CAT awards for outstanding performance by an ensemble, a shared award for Ian Pond and Anastasia St. Amand’s fight direction, Patrick Murray ’s soundscape and a further joint award for outstanding stage craft that is shared by Aaron Conrad, Matt Pickering, James Ravenhill and Ian Pond.
Simply Theatre’s production of Crimes of the Heart won CATs for Jen Leclaire for her lead performance as Bebe Botrelle and Michael Armstrong for his supporting role as the lawyer Barnett Lloyd.
Sandy Lucas won a CAT for best supporting actress in a play for her role as Ethel in Morpheus Theatre’s production of the comedy Moon Over Buffalo.
The 2018 CAT award for outstanding original composition went to Steve Ford for his music in Scorpio Theatre’s world premiere production of New York playwright Stephen Cedars’ The Sad, Old Songs.
Carl Bishop was the 2018 recipient of the Sandy Singer Award for his outstanding contribution to community theatre. Bishop has participated in more than 54 productions for such diverse companies as Cappuccino Musical Theatre, Front Row Players, Morpheus Theatre, StoryBook Theatre and Scorpio Theatre as an actor, writer, director, stage manager and producer. Bishop is currently the president of Scorpio Theatre.
Nineteen productions from 10 companies shared the 119 nominations in 23 categories.