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Monday, November 10, 2008
2008 Suzi Bass Awards handed out
Updated with photo gallery. Clink "Suzi" below.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Alliance Theatre dominated the Suzi Bass Awards on Monday night — picking up 13 of the 20 artistic prizes.
Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth’s haunting production of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” — named the best production of 2007 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — led the pack with five of the silver-star medallions, followed by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “In the Red and Brown Water” with four and Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” with two. (“Eurydice” was a co-production with Georgia Shakespeare.)
All three productions were produced on the Alliance’s downstairs Hertz Stage, making it the year’s most acclaimed and essential drama destination.
The Suzi Bass Awards, named after a beloved Atlanta actress who died of melanoma a few years ago, were presented at a classy and formal affair in the Fox Theatre’s Egyptian Ballroom. Over the past four years, the Suzis have become Atlanta’s answer to the Tony Awards.
The top acting awards for a play went to LaLa Cochran for “The Little Dog Laughed” at Theatre in the Square and Joe Knezevich for his lead performance in Georgia Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” Natasha Drena won for best lead actress in a musical for Aurora Theatre’s “Annie Get Your Gun,” while Craig A. Meyer won the best lead actor in a musical for “Jacques Brel.”
Atlanta playwright Pearl Cleage showed up to claim the Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award for “A Song for Coretta,” and her first comments were a celebration of “being alive in the new America” of President-elect Barack Obama.
“Her characters are so much like our new president,” said 7 Stages artistic director Del Hamilton as he introduced Cleage. “Overwhelmingly positive and optimistic.”
“A Song for Coretta” is about a group of women waiting in the rain outside Ebenezer Baptist Church to view the body of Coretta Scott King. “This is the first play I have written in 10 years,” Cleage said, “and it’s a heck of a way to come back.” Cleage is also a highly regarded novelist.
The evening’s tribute to Suzi Awards founder Gene-Gabriel Moore and Spirit of Suzi Bass Award winner Carol Mitchell-Leon were bittersweet. Moore, who died in July after triumphing over a series of catastrophic health problems and forming a theater for the disabled, was remembered in a slide presentation, accompanied by Louis Armstrong’s rendition of “What A Wonderful World.”
It would have been hard for anyone to find words to describe the irrepressible and irascible Moore, but the pictures were profiles in courage. Moore, a former print journalist and TV inteviewer, was shown looking handsome and vital in pictures from his middle years. In images shot after a series of strokes and other ailments, he remained witty and spirited.
Leon, who has been suffering from an undisclosed illness for nearly a year, was saluted by former student Dorothy Bell and close friend Jen Harper. “She was the fiercest actor I have ever known,” Harper said of Mitchell-Leon, who taught at Clark Atlanta University and has been one of the city’s most visible actresses for years.
Harper said when she told Mitchell-Leon about the award, “She frowned up a little bit, and then the biggest smile came across her face, and she said, ‘Tell them thank you.’ “
“She is so deserving and the battle she has fought and won, I have never heard a complaint,” said Bell, who teared up as she recounted anecdotes about her mentor.
Here’s a full list of winners:
Featured actress, play. Bethany Anne Lind, “The Last Schwartz,” Jewish Theatre of the South.
Featured actor, play. Andrew Benator, “Eurydice,” Alliance Theatre/Georgia Shakespeare co-production.
Lead actress, play. LaLa Cochran, “The Little Dog Laughed,” Theatre in the Square.
Lead actor, play. Joe Knezevich, “Richard III,” Georgia Shakespeare.
Lead actress, musical. Natasha Drena, “Annie Get Your Gun,” Aurora Theatre.
Lead actor, musical. Craig A. Meyer, “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
Director, play. Tina Landau, “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Director, musical. Susan V. Booth, “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
Production, play. “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Production, musical. “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
Scenic design. Kat Conley, “Eurydice,” Alliance/Georgia Shakespeare.
Lighting design. Scott Zielinski, “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Sound design. Chris Bartelski, “In Darfur,” Horizon Theatre.
Costume design. Christine Turbitt, “The Merchant of Venice,” Georgia Shakespeare.
Featured actress, musical. Marva Hicks, “The Women of Brewster Place,” Alliance.
Featured actor, musical. Eric Moore, “Godspell,” Theatrical Outfit.
Ensemble, play. “In the Red and Brown Water,” Alliance.
Ensemble, musical. “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” Alliance.
Choreography. Byron Easley and Kent Gash, “Sophisticated Ladies,” Alliance.
Musical direction. Michael Fauss, “Jacques Brel,” Alliance.
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‘High School Musical 2’ @ the Fox
“High School Musical 2 — On Stage!” Grade: C+. 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday. 2 p.m. Saturday. 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday. $20-$68. Theater of the Stars, Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-817-8700, ticketmaster.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Disney entertainment empire mastered the art of summer vacation decades ago. To visit a Disney theme park is to enter a fantasy world where your favorite cartoon characters spring to life in amazing Technicolor.
No wonder, then, that summer break is the conceit of “High School Musical 2.” In the second installment of the tween phenomenon, the entire East High gang relocates from Albuquerque, N.M., to the Lava Springs Country Club, which happens to be owned by the parents of thespian over-achievers Ryan and Sharpay Evans.
Lava Springs may not be a theme park. But as portrayed in Theater of the Stars’ world premiere of “High School Musical 2 — On Stage!” at the Fox Theatre, it becomes a sugared overload of cotton-candy colors, kitschy song-and-dance numbers, innumerable swimsuits and beachballs and one very meaningful kiss between East High dream couple Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez.
The thinnest episode in the “High School Musical” franchise (Part Three is now a big-screen blockbuster), “High School Musical 2” loses its way by venturing off campus; in dancing from classroom to poolside, from restaurant kitchen to golf course, from baseball diamond to talent show, it goes off game.
The music is thin, and in this stage treatment the cast is uneven. But even though director Jeff Calhoun and choreographer Lisa Stevens can’t rival Busby Berkeley, they keep the 41-member cast on its toes and deliver a family entertainment that succeeds at tickling the fancy of kids while numbing the minds of adults. And every now and then, this “ever-effervescent” show evokes some genuinely affecting moments.
You feel that magic anytime you hear “You Are the Music in Me,” the duet that Kelsi (the lovely Olivia Oguma) has written for Troy (Anderson Davis) and Gabriella (Arielle Jacobs, reprising her role from the Theater of the Stars-incubated national tour). And you sense it in the finale’s “Every Day” and “All for One,” after Troy realizes his mistakes and trouble-maker Sharpay (Rebecca Faulkenberry) is redeemed.
Finding the onstage equivalent of Ashley Tisdale’s Sharpay has always been problematic, and Faulkenberry is no exception. Her singing is adequate but never memorable, and her one-note acting fails to exploit Sharpay’s delicious diva potential. And though Bobby List encapsulates the sweetness of Ryan, his take sometimes veers off to a fluttery and squeaky-voiced extreme.
Jacobs, on the other hand, has matured into a dazzling Gabriella — very pretty, and very easy on the ears. While Davis doesn’t quite have the dreamy charisma of film counterpart Zac Efron or the touring company’s John Jeffrey Martin, he puts his own stamp on Troy. In dealing with Sharpay’s ridiculous shenanigans, Davis nails the “what-the-heck-is-going-on-here?” look. He’s fun.
Beyond the principals, there’s not room for much character development. But attention must be paid to the following: the delightful Patrick Richwood as the officious, rubber-jowled Mr. Fulton, the country club manager and Sharpay’s pawn; Shannon Antalan as Taylor McKessie and Travis Waldschmidt, as the nervous and over-rehearsed ventriloquist, waiting in the wings for the talent show.
Though the actors look like they might slide off a couple of Kenneth Foy’s skewed set pieces, his design for the pool scenes is wondrous, as is Wade Laboissonniere’s endless parade of flashy costumes.
“High School Musical 2” may not be fabulous, and it definitely won’t get a prize for plumbing the truths of the human condition. But it knows its audience, and it knows how to whip up a summer’s worth of froth and fun.
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“Call Me Ted” — what else do you call him?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ted Turner has finally written his memoirs.
“Call Me Ted” is in bookstores today, but I got to read an advance copy so I could review it for the paper.
As a book, it’s a little disappointing. Turner is not great at self-examination, and the early chapters about his boyhood and young adulthood, including even the suicide of his father, are just deadly, filled with cliches (he had a ghostwriter, Bill Burke) and passionless.
But once he starts into business, “Call Me Ted” starts to sound more like Ted.
Turner is a polarizing figure to many, particularly those who see CNN as a liberal network and do not care for Jane Fonda, Turner’s wife for 10 years in the ’90s. But you have to admire what he did, creating a 24-hour news network when everyone told him he was crazy, and basing it in Atlanta.
Remember those Olympics that were here 12 years ago? One of the reasons Atlanta got the bid was because the international committee was familiar with CNN.
I know no one has had the chance to read “Call Me Ted” yet, but that won’t stop you from posting an opinion on Turner and what he has done. So have at it!
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