CEA nominations (clockwise from upper left) include the Playhouse's Metamorphoses

It's time for round eight of the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. Sponsored by CityBeat, the CEAs are Cincinnati's only broad-ranging awards program that honors theatrical performances and productions. (The CEAs also highlight outstanding local musicians and bands. See related story, page 47.)

The growth of the awards since 1997 reflects the positive evolution of Cincinnati's theater scene. This year CEA nominations cite nearly 30 productions by more than a dozen theater companies, a remarkable array for a city the size of Cincinnati. The nominations in 13 categories were named by a group of area theater critics. (Although not every critic participates, all are regularly invited to be involved.) Some categories are determined by public voting (a ballot will be published in CityBeat's Sept. 29 issue; or vote online starting this weekend at www.citybeat.com/cea). A few additional categories are decided separately by the critics. The CEAs will be presented at a gala ceremony in November.

Nominations were announced on Sept. 20 at the League of Cincinnati Theatres' annual Curtain Up! season preview event at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. It was an energized evening, with each of Cincinnati's theater groups promoting their 2004-2005 seasons and buzzing about the CEA selections from 2003-2004.

Four plays will vie for outstanding production: A Lesson Before Dying, staged by Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC); Metamorphoses at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; On the Town presented by UC's College-Conservatory of Music) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead from the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (CSF).

Burgess Byrd in Know Theatre Tribe's Neat

A second set of shows earned nominations as the most outstanding new works to be presented locally. They were Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange (regional premiere at ETC), Brian Dykstra's Hiding Behind Comets (world premiere at the Play-house), April DeAngelis' Ironmistress (North American premiere by the Women's Theatre Initiative) and One by Cincinnati writer Joseph McDonough, presented at the Playhouse.

The CEAs also recognize excellence in community theater productions. While such shows are presented by non-professional volunteers, their quality is often high, and many companies choose challenging scripts such as Village Players (The Voice of the Prairie, a show presented by the Playhouse several seasons ago), Cincinnati Music Theatre (for Ragtime at the Aronoff's Jarson-Kaplan Theater), Showbiz Players (which gears up for one show annually, this year offering Jekyll & Hyde) and Greater Hamilton Civic Theatre (A Piece of My Heart, a moving work about nurses in Vietnam).

Productions that engage sizeable casts in well integrated performances are recognized by the CEA for ensemble performance. The nominees this year are CCM's Ghetto, set in a concentration camp; the Playhouse's Metamorphoses in which actors played an array of characters from classical mythology; a small cast who innovatively staged a downsized My Fair Lady at the Playhouse, and the Know Theatre Tribe's diverse cast for Athol Fugard's powerful My Children! My Africa!

Ensemble Theatre's A Lesson Before Dying,

Individual performers are highlighted through the awards, too: Leading actresses nominated are Burgess Byrd (in the one-woman Neat for the Know Theatre Tribe), Corinne Mohlenhoff (as a giddy wife in Ovation Theatre Company's Fallen Angels), Anne Valauri (playing a young woman in Know Theatre Tribe's My Children! My Africa!) and Kate Wilford (as a grieving woman trying to rebuild her life in The Women of Lockerbie at ETC). Actors nominated for leading roles are Bruce Cromer (a devious psychologist in Blue/Orange at ETC), Jeremy Dubin and Christopher Guthrie as the title characters in the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) and Nick Rose, CSF's former artistic director (for his performance in the title role of Pericles).

Local actors and actresses nominated for supporting roles include Molly Binder (Know Theatre), Julianna Bloodgood (CCM), Sunshine Cappelletti (Ovation), Drew Fracher (ETC), Chris Guthrie (CSF), Derek Duane Hake (CCM), Iriemimen Oniha (ETC) and Zack Whittington (CSF).

Musical performances compete in a separate CEA category. Nominees this year are Tom Cartwright (in the title role in Showbiz Players' Jekyll & Hyde), Pam Day and Ken Early (Ragtime, Cincinnati Music Theatre), Allison Elfline and Kera Halbersleben (as Siamese twins in New Stage Collective's Side Show), Beth Harris (Nite Club Confidential, ETC), Roderick Justice (Jesus Christ Superstar, NKU) and Lindsay Pier and Eric Daniel Santagata (On the Town, CCM).

CSF's Rosencrantz and Guilden-stern Are Dead

While the CEAs are meant to celebrate work staged locally (that's why touring productions presented by Broadway in Cincinnati are not eligible), work by actors -- largely professionals from elsewhere who perform at the Playhouse and ETC -- is honored in two categories, outstanding performance by a visiting actor and by a visiting actress.

Finally, the CEAs also recognize technical achievement, such as outstanding scenic design. The Playhouse's Metamorphoses, which featured an onstage swimming pool for the play's mythical characters was a natural choice. Others included ETC's The Women of Lockerbie, which used a wall of whitewashed suitcases and a floor of clear plastic over crumpled clothes to evoke memories of the terrorist bombing of a passenger jet over Scotland; the Playhouse's One, a series of intertwined monologues that were atmospherically lit and "illustrated" with etched glass panels and an illuminated floor; and CCM's On the Town, with a set that conjured up an amusingly animated version of New York City in the late 1940s.