DCPA NEWS CENTER
Enjoy the best stories and perspectives from the theatre world today.
Enjoy the best stories and perspectives from the theatre world today.
By John Moore
Senior Arts Journalist
The Colorado Theatre Guild’s 2018 Henry Award nominations reflect the biggest story of the Colorado theatre year: Three Colorado companies became the first to stage the groundbreaking musical Fun Home — and they were rewarded today with a combined 19 nominations.
The Arvada Center broke the Henry Awards’ all-time record for nominations with 29, followed by the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College with 24. The Denver Center was next, with 15. Those three are joined in the Outstanding Season category by the Aurora Fox, Midtown Arts Center in Fort Collins, Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden and Vintage Theatre in Aurora.
The Fine Arts Center’s productions of Fun Home and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels tied as the most honored productions of the Colorado theatre year, with 11 nominations each. Among musicals, Miners Alley Playhouse’s staging of Fun Home picked up eight nominations, followed by the Arvada Center’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (7), Inspire Creative’s co-production of Hairspray with Parker Arts (7), and the Aurora Fox’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch (6).
The most honored play of the year is the Arvada Center’s modern adaptation of Sense and Sensibility (on wheels!) with 10, followed by The Edge Theatre’s Mud Blue Sky (5) and the Arvada Center’s All My Sons (4), Vintage Theatre’s August: Osage County (4) and Benchmark Theatre’s A Kid Like Jake (4). (Pictured: ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ Photo by Matthew Gale.)
Sense and Sensibility, which launched the Arvada Center’s second year with a year-round company of resident actors, earned four acting nods including, appropriately enough, one for Outstanding Ensemble. The precisely timed staging by Director Lynne Collins was more than an old-fashioned Jane Austen comedy of manners pitting heart versus head. “It’s a very physical, mannered dance, performed with distinction by a gifted cast,” wrote The Denver Post’s Joanne Ostrow. All of the set pieces were placed on wheels and twirled in precise choreography, steered by frenetic actors sometimes holding on by their ankles. Ostrow called the effort “a dizzying, delightful spectacle.”
Fun Home, the first major Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist, is an underdog story that was staged in early 2018 by companies in Colorado Springs, Golden and Fort Collins. It is based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir of a woman who dives deep into her past to revisit how she discovered her own sexuality — while at the same time trying to piece together the mystery surrounding her late father. Alison is represented onstage by three actors playing the character at different ages. And, in a fun twist — at least one actor playing Alison at all three ages is nominated for a Henry Award, including young Sophia Dotson, who played “Small Alison” for Miners Alley Playhouse.
(Pictured: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College’s ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,’ nominated for 11 Henry Awards.)
The Henrys nominate seven — and in some cases eight — artists in each category. The Outstanding Lead Actress field not only includes three of Colorado’s Fun Home Alisons, it has two women from separate productions of Always … Patsy Cline: Norrell Moore played the iconic singer for BDT Stage, while Jalyn Courtenay Webb played her bossy friend Louise for Midtown Arts Center in Fort Collins. (Pictured, photos courtesy Midtown Arts Center and Glenn Ross.)
The Henry Awards, which consider achievements among Colorado Theatre Guild member companies, have been notoriously topsy-turvy throughout its controversial and unpredictable 13-year existence. This year, for first time in Henrys history, not a single DCPA Theatre Company production is included among the seven nominated outstanding plays or musicals. The Denver Center received only two individual nominations among the Henrys’ 58 possible acting slots — Jordan Leigh as a supporting actor in DCPA Cabaret’s First Date, and supporting actress Lulu Fall, who played The Acid Queen in the Theatre Company’s The Who’s Tommy.
The DCPA Theatre Company, which staged four world premieres this season, placed The Great Leap and Zoey’s Perfect Wedding among the seven nominated new works. But not record-setting audience favorite American Mariachi, which already has been performed at the Old Globe in San Diego and has several more stagings lined up throughout the country. It received only one nomination, for costumes.
The Arvada Center’s 29 nominations eclipes the Denver Center’s record of 28 set in 2014. It has been two years since the Arvada Center added Collins (a double-nominee for direction) to oversee the production of plays while Rod A. Lansberry continues to supervise the musicals. Lansberry is nominated for his direction of A Chorus Line. But what put the Arvada Center into record territory was the return of Joseph, once its annual holiday staple, which received seven nominations under the direction of Gavin Mayer.
In all, 29 member companies shared the 178 overall Henry Award nominations:
Nominations by Company
Noticeably missing from that nominee slate is again Curious Theatre Company, a former Henry Awards darling that pulled out of further consideration in 2016, citing “a profound lack of diversity” among the winners.
Among actors, multiple nominees this year include Adrian Egolf (pictured) as a lead actress in Benchmark Theatre’s A Kid Like Jake, and as a supporting actress in Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s The Revolutionists. She played a mother competing to get her gender-fluid 4-year-old into the best kindergarten in the former; a beguiling Marie Antoinette in the latter. Emma Messenger, who previously won Outstanding Actress two straight years, is twice nominated as a supporting actress this year, for The Edge Theater’s Mud Blue Sky and Vintage’s current Agnes of God, which runs through July 8. In the former, Messenger played a melancholy flight attendant pushed out of her job because of her body size; in the latter, she plays an imperious nun.
Nick Sugar, the most honored individual in Colorado Theatre Guild history, is nominated both for directing and choreographing the Aurora Fox’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, bringing his 13-year total to 21 Henry Award nominations.
There often are nominee clusters in the four design categories each year because the Guild splits scenic, lighting, sound and costume design nominees into two tiers determined by member companies’ annual overall operating budgets. Only six member companies have annual budgets above the $1.2 million threshold and are therefore considered Tier I: The DCPA, Arvada Center, Creede Repertory Theatre, Theatre Aspen, Colorado Shakespeare Festival and Colorado Springs TheatreWorks. The rest all compete in Tier II. But both categories still get seven (and sometimes eight) nominees.
“We are looking to expand the number of Tier I companies for the 2018-19 season,” said CTG board member and past president T. David Rutherford. “We will be discussing the change with producers in the weeks to come.”
Designers Jason Ducat (pictured) and Brian Mallgrave pulled off a triple play by each landing three individual nominations this year. Ducat, whose most recent sound design is currently on display in the DCPA’s Human Error, was nominated three times, for the Arvada Center’s All My Sons and Sense and Sensibility; and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Julius Caesar. Mallgrave, a former actor who has now earned 19 Henry Award nominations as a scenic designer, was singled out this year for the Arvada Center’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Sense and Sensibility and Sunday in the Park with George.
Denver Center Costume Designer Meghan Anderson Doyle was nominated twice in Tier I, for the Theatre Company’s American Mariachi and Off-Center’s The Wild Party. Lighting Designer Katie Gruenhagen landed nominations in both tiers: For Off-Center’s This is Modern Art (Tier I) and Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s Birds of North America.
Other multiple nominees this year include:
And while Warren Sherrill is officially nominated only once, for his scenic design of The Edge’s Mud Blue Sky, he also directed two Outstanding Play nominees: The Edge’s Death of a Salesman and Benchmark Theatre’s A Kid Like Jake.
Highly regarded eligible companies that were shut out of the nominations this year include Boulder’s The Catamounts, which had eight nominations a year ago; Phamaly Theatre Company; Creede Repertory Theatre; the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Johnstown; Performance Now in Lakewood; and Theatre Aspen, which earned 25 nominations just two years ago and won Outstanding Season by a company.
Perhaps the most glaringly omitted individual among all nominees is Emily Van Fleet, who was critically celebrated for headlining two very different challenges in Off-Center’s The Wild Party and the Arvada Center’s Sunday in the Park with George. Van Fleet, a 2017 True West Award winner, has never earned a Henry Award nomination.
Established in 2006, the Henrys are named for longtime local theatre producer Henry Lowenstein and serve as the Colorado Theatre Guild’s annual fundraising event. Nominations were determined through a judging process conducted by statewide adjudicators. Five judges must score a show for it to be eligible. According to Rutherford, 162 of 197 shows were fully scored, or 82.2 percent of all member offerings.
He said that unlike other years, the nominees for Outstanding Season were determined simply by the seven companies with the most nominations.
The Guild has overhauled the judging pool in recent months, aggressively growing the number of active judges from about 25 a year ago to 100. Rutherford says the judging pool for the new theatre season, which began June 1, has grown to 120. Many other sweeping changes for the coming season include judges being assigned to shows they score, rather than choosing they shows they want to see.
Tickets for the 2018 Henry Awards ceremony are $35 for CTG members (up from $23 last year); the nonmember price is now $40 (and rises to $45 on the day of the event July 23).
John Moore was named one of the 12 most influential theater critics in the U.S by American Theatre Magazine in 2011. He has since taken a groundbreaking position as the Denver Center’s Senior Arts Journalist.
Video: A look back at the 2017 Henry Awards
2018 HENRY AWARD NOMINATIONS
Outstanding Season for a Theatre Company
Outstanding Production of a Play
Outstanding Production of a Musical
Outstanding Direction of a Play
Outstanding Direction of a Musical
Outstanding Musical Direction
Outstanding Actor in a Play
Outstanding Actress in a Play
Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Outstanding Actress in a Musical
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Musical
Outstanding Ensemble Performance
Outstanding Choreography
Outstanding New Play or Musical
Outstanding Costume Design, larger budget
Outstanding Costume Design, smaller budget
Outstanding Lighting Design, larger budget
Outstanding Lighting Design, smaller budget
Outstanding Scenic Design larger budget
Outstanding Scenic Design, smaller budget
Outstanding Sound Design, larger budget
Outstanding Sound Design, smaller budget