After nominations for the previous year were compiled in January, a number of reviewers from various media outlets who'd seen fifty or more theatrical presentations over the year voted in February. In March, a broad cross-section of the Boston area theatre community assembled once again at the Lenox Hotel next to the BPL for the drama of the annual IRNE awards. After special citations for Oskar Eustis from Trinity, who cited that organizations recent "Henriad" as a crowning achievement, another for Deaf West's "Big River" which played the Wang Center, and a Lifetime Achievement Award to the Fabulous Baker Sisters which engendered five minutes of vintage Borsch Belt humor that got everyone in a great mood, the awards began. Vincent Ernest Siderscurrent artistic director of the New African Company, had to pick up his Best Supporting Actor for his role in Speakeasy's production of "Our Lady of 121st St" early so he could drive one of his company members over to the emergency room to deal with a severe sprain suffered in rehearsal. The show must go on.
The first big winners of the evening were Melinda Lopez's Cuban exile family drama, "Sonia Flew", which inaugurated B.U.'s new Wimberley Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, and Kate Snodgrass' "The Glider", a three actress family drama which ran last fall at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre. "Sonia Flew" garnered the Huntington Theatre Company's artistic director Nicholas Martin, his first IRNE for direction, and Adam Stockhausen a Best Set Design award. The show also won Best Dramatic Production of the year. Richard Chambers, who now does theatre design at Suffolk University, got his second IRNE for the set of "The Glider" while its lighting designer Andrew Foley shared that award with Jeffrey Gardiner out at Turtle Lane for the latter's work on Evita. Both original scripts are closely associated with the Playwriting Program at B.U., which is headed by Snodgrass. She workshopped an earlier version several years ago at the Women on Top Festival. Award-winning playwright Lopez, a graduate of that program, is currently a Playwriting Fellow at the Huntington, and appearing as the lead in "ANNA in the Tropics" having its New England premiere at the BCA. Awards incidentally are given separately to large and small companies.
A more surprising multi-award winner was Nora Hussey's production of Polly Teale's "After Mrs. Rochester" done by the Wellesley Summer Theatre. This professional company based in the Ruth Nagle Jones Theater at the college ran the show a year ago January and revived it in repertory with the author's "Jane Eyre", which they'd done two years earlier, at the end of their winter season. Both shows won a Best Ensemble award, Kortney Adams got Best Supporting for "After Mrs. Rochester" while Alicia Kahn, appearing in both shows, shared Best Actress . The other Best Actress award went to stalwart Judith McIntyre for her appearances in both "Kimberly Akimbo" for Boston Theatre Works presented at Boston Playwright's and Ronan Noone's "Gigolo Confessions of Baile Breag", the third part of his Baile (village) trilogy done by the Sugan Theatre at the BCA.. Noone is another Huntington Fellow. WST's cornucopia overflowed however when Hussey herself received the annual Lifetime in the Theatre award for developing the company at Wellesley, a unique combination of local professional actors and Wellesley students. A number of the latter like Kahn have gone onto successful professional careers or are finishing top-rated graduate programs. It wasn't too surprising that Hussey also got Best Direction for the shows as well. Hussey incidentally was instrumental in bringing "Sin - A Cardinal Deposed" in from Chicago. That show, which played the Regent in Arlington, won Best Visiting Production for the Bailiwick Repertory.
The larger University associated theatres received their share of nominations. Thomas Derrah, one of the American Repertory Theatre's founding members, received a Best Actor award for Stanley in Joanne Akalitis' revival of "The Birthday Party". His colleague, another founding member and hometown girl, Karen McDonald got both Best Supporting and Best Actress awards, cited for work in "The Birthday Party", "Midsummer;s Night's Dream", "The Miser", and "The Provok'd Wife". She and Derrah almost stole the latter show. Julie White got Best Solo Performance for Theresa Rebeck's "Bad Dates" which was remounted from New York for the Huntington mainstage.
Music theatre has had interesting successes around here lately . The Lyric Stage Company of Boston's season opener, "A Little Night Music" brought artistic director Spiro Veloudos another IRNE, while Maryann Zschau got her second for Desiree. Christopher Chew got his first for the show, and was cited for his appearance in Speakeasy Stage Company's "Johnny Guitar" as well. Jonathan Goldberg got an overdue IRNE for music direction of "A Little Night Music", which he shared with Jose Degaldo for "Johnny Guitar". Velodous' Best Musical Director award was shared with Bill Doscher for "Ragtime" over at the historic Footlight Club. . Speakeasy's "Company" which inaugurated their new home in the Robert's Studio at the Calderwood Pavilion, garnered Kerry Dowling Best Supporting Actress and Will McGarrahan Best Supporting Actor. They played one of the couples in Sondheim's ground-breaking show. Dowling was also cited for Speakeasy's production of Finn's "Elegies". "Little Night Music" also got Best Costumes for David Cabral .Veloudos, Zchau, Chew, and Goldberg will reunite for Lyric's opener next fall, "Urinetown".
The touring version of that show seen a year ago at the Colonial got Jason DeBord the nod for Musical Director and Ron Holgate Best Supporting Actor. Holgate noted that he got his start onstage years ago at the Wilbur in an opera. The Music Direction award was tied with Reagle's Jeffrey P. Leonard and Karen Gahagan who won for "The Music Man", which also got its star, local newsman Scott Wahle, an IRNE for the lead. Best Musical Production also went to the Meredith Wilson classic, which got Cheryl McMahon her IRNE for Best Supporting Actress. She was also cited for her work as the tipsy teacher in Reagle's "Grease". The North Shore Music Theatre got several nominations for its premiere of "Tom Jones - the Musical". Gabriel Barre got the Best Director nod, and Donald Holder picked up Best Lighting. Holder was also cited for "Moving Out" at the Colonial. Twyla Tharp got Best Choreography for that show. The small theatre Choreography award to Judy Erikson and Pierre Chartrand was for this year's French-Canadian version of the annual Christmas Revels done at Sanders Theatre in Memorial Hall at Harvard. Again from North Shore, Montego Glover got the nod for Best Actress in a Musical for the title role in the Elton John/Tim Rice version of "Aida". Another Disney effort, "The Lion KIng", which started its national tour with a long run at the renovated Opera House aka the Paramount, received the Best Visiting production award and got Julie Taymor the Best Costume nod.
This year's IRNE celebration was another successful congregation of the diverse collection of dedicated people that make up the area's vibrant theatre scene. Awards went to the usual mix of old and new faces, chosen from a truly eclectic group of nominees. A full list can be found on Boston's Theater Mirror or here. The first quarter of 2005 has already produced substantial productions which are sure to be in the running for next March's IRNEs.