Last night The Cincinnati Enquirer presented for the fourth year its "me-too" theater awards, the Acclaims. (CityBeat's Cincinnati Entertainment Awards will mark their 13th year in August.) It was as quirky as ever, with no real explanation of how or who awards are decided on. I will grudgingly admit that any recognition for Cincinnati's theater scene is worthwhile, and the Acclaims made some fine choices, but there were just as many that left me scratching my head, especially several of the "best of the best" choices. —-
For example:
• The best premier went to Joe McDonough's Travels of Angelica at the Cincinnati Playhouse. In a year when Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati presented more than one outstanding premiere, including August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, this one is hard to fathom. Don't get me wrong: McDonough is an excellent playwright, certainly the best we have here in Cincinnati. But this was not his best work — although the Playhouse gave it a marvelous production. (It was also a tad weird that McDonough was credited in the Acclaims program for writing the script for the Acclaims. Not that he knew he'd be receiving this award, but it is a tad incestuous.)
• The best play went to John Kolvenbach's Love Song. I really liked this script a lot, and said so in my CityBeat review. But was it the year's best production? I can think of a half-dozen other works that would be very strong candidates in this category.
• Oddest of all was a recognition for New Stage Collective's final production, A Little Night Music. The Acclaims called it the best "independent production." Huh? It was organized by New Stage and presented at Know Theatre of Cincinnati. Yes, NSC had announced it was closing down, but the cast was pretty much assembled and the Acclaims funded "Guest Equity" contracts for professionals Bruce Cromer and Amy Warner. That's hardly what I'd call "independent," which suggests a production pulled together without much support or organization. NSC's Alan Patrick Kenny was grateful for the recognition, but was bemused in his acceptance speech as to why this category.
The other two "best of the bests," Cincinnati Shakespeare's Amadeus (best revival) and CCM's Two Gentlemen of Verona (best musical) made more sense to me. But the true best of the best, in my opinion, is the way the Acclaims recognize a set of high school drama teachers who are nominated by their students. Top honors went to Emily Himondis of the St. Henry District High School in Erlanger and John Whapham of Sycamore High School, with additional recognition to Susan Jung (Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy), Mary Lenning (School for Creative and Performing Arts) and Michele Mascari (St. Xavier High School). Every one of them offered heartfelt remarks about the impact of theater on high school kids.
It was also nice to see Richard Hess, chair of the drama program at CCM, given a "Trailblazer Award." In his remarks, he indicated that he's less about clearing a path than he is about pushing people from behind then watching from the audience to see the result. He also acknowledged his sister, who was in the audience: Apparently 30 years ago she gave him as an 11th birthday present a ticket to a community theater production of Brigadoon. It was his first time to experience live theater, and he was hooked.
Attendance was around 200 in the Aronoff's Jarson-Kaplan Theater, which seats 400. At 7:40 p.m., about 10 minutes after the show was to begin, ushers were trying to entice people from the balcony (where I was sitting) to fill in empty seats on the theater's main floor. They didn't succeed — about 25 percent of those seats remained empty throughout the two-hour program, which included several musical performances, marred occasionally by patchy sound management. The evening was opened and closed by Broadway veteran and Cincinnati native Pam Myers, and there were several musical numbers previewing the upcoming season. Best among them was a rendering of "Fat & Greasy" from Ain't Misbehavin' (to be presented at the Playhouse) and "My Childhood" from Jacques Brel's Lonesome Losers of the Night (an upcoming Fringe Festival show). Singer Ken Early was involved in both; he was joined by Deondra Means for a sassy delivery of "Fat & Greasy."
