“Google “billionaire theater producer” and you will find no results. In fact, theater is often where investors go to lose money, as Mel Brooks hilariously taught us in The Producers. Why does any company do it, then – take on the incredible risks of producing a show or founding a new theater company? Generosity of spirit surely plays a role, but perhaps the most compelling factor is long-term wisdom, knowing that we need stories, both as individuals and as a species, to guide us forward against the endless looming night.” – Tim Treanor
Outstanding Production nominees featured: Annie, Avenue Q, Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, Little Shop of Horrors, Oklahoma!, Othello, Superior Donuts, The Light in the Piazza, The Master and Margarita, The Nutcracker and The Red Balloon.
And the two recipients of this year’s John Aniello Award for Emerging Theatre Company: Factory 449 and No Rules Theatre Company.
——-
Annie
Clay Hopper, Associate Artistic Director . Olney Theatre Center
Why this show?
Every year we do a family oriented musical during the Christmas season and this show fit the bill quite nicely. In addition, the Depression-era story has resonances in our contemporary context given the current state of our financial duress and the need to find ways through it, despite its demoralizing effect on us.
How did you first learn of the play?
The same time everyone else on the planet did, back in 1977.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
The scenic elements huge, and had a hard time fitting into our theatre, but we managed it.
——-
Avenue Q
Chris Jennings, Managing Director . Shakespeare Theatre Company
Why this show?
Avenue Q is a uniquely smart production that appeals to both tried-and-true theatre-goers and casual attendees. We knew that it had the ability to draw in tourists and core DC theatre patrons for an extended summer run in a more intimate setting. It appeals to such a wide variety of sensibilities and interests—from movement, to music, to puppetry, to the all-important Schadenfreude—we felt it could provide something enjoyable for everyone.
How did you first learn of the play?
I first learned of the play through an acquaintance. I had been discussing the success Avenue Q found when it left Broadway for a smaller theatre and an extended run. She mentioned that the producers were planning to finish their U.S. tour before bringing Avenue Q abroad. I realized that the intimate Lansburgh Theatre could be a perfect fit for the production. Patrons would be able to see the actors and the puppets emote, move and react – aspects of performance that might have been lost in the space of a much larger venue. By chance, we had space in the summer to accommodate the production and were searching for something that could appeal to a diverse audience.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
From a business perspective, the most challenging part of the production was expanding our marketing efforts to reach tourist and non-traditional Shakespeare audiences. It was an opportunity to try a number of new techniques and use new resources to expand our reach. We did everything from video interviews with the actors, to having the puppets invade a boot camp fitness class. As a result, we were able to capitalize on this diverse audience during the 2010-2011 season—many of our Avenue Q patrons became Shakespeare package-buyers. A large percentage also returned to see Candide, which shares much of the eccentric wit found in Avenue Q.
What about this production makes you most proud?
Before its life on Broadway, Avenue Q originated in an intimate venue, the 120-seat Vineyard Theatre. We were happy to see it return to another intimate setting, the 451-seat Lansburgh. The physical proximity of the actors, puppets and audience allowed for memorable moments that fulfilled the production’s aims to actively engage audiences. We viewed it as a homecoming for Avenue Q, allowing it to be seen as it was intended. The Shakespeare Theatre Company was proud to facilitate that homecoming.
——-
Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies
Molly Smith, Artistic Director . Arena Stage
Why this show?
This was a perfect match with the Lincoln Theatre as we were in our nomadic years; and because Duke Ellington made part of his creative life at the Lincoln and on U Street. And Charles Randolph-Wright and Maurice Hines were a perfect match for this brilliant material.
How did you first learn of the play?
No idea.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
It’s a huge technical production, from over a hundred costumes to film to projections, and we were not in our home theater. This was an enormous challenge for the entire staff and production — and beautifully attained by all.
What about this production makes you most proud?
The brilliance of the production, discovering the Manzari brothers, and supporting the revitalization of U Street and the Lincoln Theatre as an entertainment part of the city.
——-
If You Give a Pig a Pancake
Michael J. Bobbitt, Artistic Director . Adventure Theatre
Why this show?
The insanely popular title and the success that we had on If You Give a Mouse a Cookie drew me. The joy of the young child in the play learning to be spontaneous is something that adults can learn from. And there is a tap dancing pig!
How did you first learn of the play?
I saw it in a marquee of plays that Theatre for Young Audiences, USA produces each year.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
Reminding the actors what tap dancing felt like. It was a total blast. We worked on basic tap steps for about a month before rehearsals started. Branda and Holly were totally committed.
What about this production makes you most proud?
Everything. Brilliant performances, amazing staging, inspiring design. It’s truly been a gift that has continued to give. And having Holly Twyford on our stage has endeared us to a ton of people that had never really known about us.
——-
Little Shop of Horrors
Mark Ramont, Director of Theatre Programming . Ford’s Theatre
Why this show?
We wanted to challenge conventional perceptions of the type of work that is produced at Ford’s Theatre, and we felt Little Shop broke that mold. To our mind, it sat totally within our mission: what could be more reflective of the American Experience than a journey into a Sci-Fi world with a score and book by two of America’s most celebrated creators of musicals: Howard Ashman and Alan Menken? And we loved the idea of giving our spring visitors a show with an energy and humor that would appeal to a younger audience.
How did you first learn of the play?
Who doesn’t know about Little Shop of Horrors, one of the most beloved musicals from the Off-Broadway canon? Additionally, Ford’s Theatre Director Paul Tetreault produced a production at the Alley Theatre, so he has a particular fondness for the show.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
Director Coy Middlebrook’s conception of the world of the musical being Spaceship Earth presented amazing opportunities for a fresh look at this classic, but also serious challenges. Not only were the design/production demands greater than we had originally planned on, but we also had to make certain that the original intention of the authors was honored so that those seeing the show for the first time – and with the large numbers of middle and high schoolers who attended the production, there were a lot of people seeing the show for the first time – would have the same delight of discovering the story that older generations had when they first saw the show.
What about this production makes you most proud?
Apart from the amazing cast and creative team – a truly remarkably talented group of people – we’re most proud of the fact that this show delighted audiences across a wide demographic spectrum. Seeing a diverse audience inhabit our auditorium and listening to them fill it with laughter, applause and a terrific energy – there’s just nothing better or more gratifying.
——-
Oklahoma!
Molly Smith, Artistic Director . Ford’s Theatre
Why this show?
This is a musical that Jaylee and the late Gil Mead loved and I wanted to celebrate their love for the American musical with this opening.
When did you first learn of the play?
In childhood.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
This was our first production in the new center — we were the test to try out the “new” theater in the round.
What about this production makes you most proud?
The wonderful diversity of the audience — from children experiencing it for the first time in their twirly shirts to people in their 80’s holding hands and remembering their youth to every race in the city — to the wonderful diversity on stage, which reflected America.
——-
Othello
Paata Tsikurishvili, Founding Artistic Director and CEO . Synetic Theater
Why this show?
I always wanted to produce Othello because of its strong, vivid symbols of love, jealousy and death. The play is both strong and sensitive, making it the perfect tragedy. It is also a perfect fit for Synetic’s signature style, and I felt it was right time having right cast, especially having Roger Payano for Othello.
How did you first learn of the play?
I read it in Georgian back in Georgia in the late 80s.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
The challenge was finding the edge of the storytelling and its style by fusing multimedia into nonverbal and visual drama.
What about this production makes you most proud?
Othello makes me proud because it is a fine fusion of nonverbal storytelling: drama, multimedia, visual and physical storytelling, which became so real, intense and enchanting to watch.
——-
Superior Donuts
Serge Seiden, Associate Producing Artistic Director . Studio Theatre
Why this show?
Sparkling comic dialogue, thematic heft,a wonderful community of characters and a fight scene to knock your socks off!
How did you first learn of the play?
Reviews of the original Steppenwolf production.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
The set was designed to bring the action into the apron of the Metheny Theatre…The design was by the venue’s namesake, Russell Metheny! The blocking was very challenging and I felt a huge responsibility to get it right because of my love and respect for Russell! In the end it was great fun and made our version appropriately 3-dimensional for an intimate Studio Theatre show.
What about this production makes you most proud?
That I got Rich Cotovsky to play Arthur. Rich was involved in the original readings of the play with the author,Tracy Letts. Rich brought an authenticity to his role that made Studio’s production special for me. Plus he was a pleasure to work with. I’m also very proud of the work Johnny Ramey did when he stepped into the lead role just 10 days before opening. He was an inspiration to the whole company.
——-
The Light in the Piazza
Molly Smith, Artistic Director . Arena Stage
Why this play?
I wanted our audience to experience that special nature of these relationships.
How did you first learn of the play?
I was a Literary Advisor at the Sundance Theatre Lab in Utah when this musical was first being made and fell in love with it then.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
The Crystal City theater is basically a platform stage without wings, a pit or fly system. We needed to create Italy in a small space.
What about this production makes you most proud?
The passion of the production.
——-
The Master and Margarita
Paata Tsikurishvili, Founding Artistic Director and CEO . Synetic Theater
Why this play?
It is an almost impossible novel adapt as a stage play, since it is so massive, surreal and monumental, having fantastic realism and a complex story line of love, faith and censorship in communistic Russia. I wanted to produce this absurd and yet very clever political satire of the Devil visiting Stalin’s Moscow by Bulgakov, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, because his storytelling is just a perfect and natural fit for Synetic’s style.
How did you first learn of the play?
“The Master and Margarita” is one the most popular novels in Eastern Europe, and Bulgakov is the most beloved writer of all time. I was introduced his books by my Mom in mid-80s.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
The Master and Margarita was really challenging to adapt, fuse and connect the Russian culture and mindset into an American culture and mindset to make the play coherent for Americans in a way that kept the message and story true to the source.
What about this production makes you most proud?
The Master and Margarita makes me proud because I was able to produce a 90-min long adaptation with a very strong and great fusion of spoken words, fine acting, movement, drama and surrealism that made this huge and impossible novel into a powerful and breathtaking production.
——-
The Nutcracker
Christopher Piper, President . The Puppet Co.
Why this show?
The Nutcracker ballet is so exposed that it has in many cases become a cliché. We wanted our production to evoke the original spirit of the E. T. A. Hoffman story, while still incorporating the music of Tchaikovsky. We felt puppets could best reflect the surreal, dreamy adventure of Clara-Marie, particularly when combined with large costume characters. Scale changes as characters change from one dreamscape to another. Though there is no dialog, the production is not dance, but acting to music.
How did you first learn of the play?
The genesis of the production came when the Arlington Symphony wanted a unique alternative to the Nutcracker ballet, that would illustrate the music. The Puppet Co.’s co-founder Allan Stevens conceived of a way to have puppets and live actors work to the music in very much the same way animation was used in the movie “Fantasia.”
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
Our intent was to tell the story of The Nutcracker using only acting to music. No dialogue. Although there are some specialty production numbers in the second act, it was important to us that the children know what was going on in the story throughout the play. When a child asks why the characters did not talk, we ask in turn, “What should they have said?” We have never gotten an answer, but often see the little light go on in the child’s head.
What about this production makes you most proud?
Professional dancers have admitted that though they had been in productions of the ballet, until they saw our show, they had no idea what the story was about. We have been performing this production for 22 years so far. We never intended for it to be an annual event, but our audiences made it very clear from the beginning that this was the holiday show they wanted to see. In all that time, we have kept the production fresh and exciting, and invariably and frequently audience members will gush that this year was even better than the last.
——-
The Red Balloon
Michael J. Bobbitt, Artistic Director . Adventure Theatre
Why this show?
I remember watching the movie, on which the play was based, as a young child in school. The movie was mesmorizing. It made such an impression on me. Magical, mythical, enchanting and tragic at the same time. Truly High Art.
How did you first learn of the play?
I was searching for titles that I thought would be good for us. I came across the movie and searched for the underlying rights, in case we might commission it. I found an existing published script, which premiered at the National Theatre in London and was written for a very large cast of 45 and in 2 acts. After some digging, I found the publishers and asked if the playwright would be willing to make it a one act for 6 actors. Eventually we used 9 actors.
Of all the elements you juggled while mounting the production, which was most challenging?
How to bring a much beloved and well known movie to life? And specifically, how do you make the balloon work in a dignified, but fun way. Many many many conversations. AND, how does the young boy fly over the the roof tops of France. All fun challenges in our space.
What about this production makes you most proud?
Wacthing different generations enjoy the magic of The Red Balloon. So many theatre artists and supporters are connected to theatre because of experiences thet had as young children. The movie did that for me, and now it has done it for my son!
Recipients of this year’s
John Aniello Award for Emerging Theatre Company
Factory 449: a theatre collective
Rick Hammerly, Producing Artistic Director
In April 2009, when the six founding members of Factory 449 first met in the windowless back room of Miss Pixie’s to discuss the possibility of beginning a theatre company, we never imagined that two short years later Factory 449: a theatre collective would be recognized by the Helen Hayes Awards with a John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company.
Over the past two years, it has been tremendously exciting to assemble a company comprised of established, accomplished, and award-winning local artists, all of whom have made significant individual contributions to the DC theatre and arts communities, for the purpose of creating theatrical programming that provokes and entertains what we feel can be a new era of Washington theatre audiences.
It is our hope that the incomparable experiences and extraordinary artistic education that we have received through combining the creativity and insights of the filmmakers, actors, composers, set designers, playwrights, lighting designers and directors who constitute Factory 449, will be effectively translated and conveyed through our productions to Washington’s diverse theatre and arts communities.
Since our initial venture, entering Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis in the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival, Factory 449’s journey has been a tremendously rewarding experience, affording the company the opportunity to produce challenging, innovative work, collaborate with and premiere work by contemporary American playwrights and commence work on company-created original programming. This has garnered Factory 449 a reputation as DC’s “experimental theatre,” which honestly, works just fine for us.
We are greatly honored to accept the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company, both an award and a reward, in affording Factory 449 the opportunity to share our progressive programming with an even greater number of Washington theatre audiences.
——-
No Rules Theatre Company
Anne S. Kohn, Joshua Morgan and Brian Sutow, Co-Artistic Directors
We are deeply grateful and humbled to be receiving the John Aniello Award. We view it as both a wonderful honor and as a sign that we as a company can continue to dream wildly. We are excited to move forward, continuing our work in discovering exciting new young artists, while also now being able to collaborate with some of DC’s most celebrated and distinguished. We shall continue to present the broad range of works and styles that we have become known for – heartfelt dramas, crazy comedies, family stories, musicals, visceral new adaptations of classic tales, and the DC premieres of extraordinary and celebrated new works – while always fighting passionately for excellence in all that we do and holding to our beliefs that for a story to deserve to be told, it must have a pertinent context and be infused with truth.
We hope that this award will encourage more audiences in DC to come discover what we are about, and wish to thank Helen Hayes and the DC arts community at large for being so wonderfully supportive and encouraging of our journey thus far. This is a remarkable theatre community full of excellence, daring and above all else kindness, and we feel unbelievably lucky to get to be a part of it.
Related:
It is so great to see Chris Piper up here where he belongs, along side Paata Tsikurishvili who is only up there two times this year, and Michael Bobbitt also up for Two Times this year, and poor Molly Smith who is only up there for three times. Last year when Paata ran down the Aisle at the Helen Hayes Awards, snagging the first ever award for Theatre for Young Spectators, it gave new meaning to the life long careers of people like Cherry Adler who gave so much work to so many actors, directors, designers and van drivers for so many years, that many of us hoped the new award would be called the “Cherry Award” to honor her tough business woman approach to producing so many years of Library Theatre. Sure she had the support of Abe Pollen. She made the Maryland State Arts Council an important wing of the Maryland State Department of Economic Development, always supporting Round House and Olney Theatre as well supporting the Arts at that broken down amusement park we call Glenn Echo where Adventure Theatre has found a place to survive into the 21st century with Chris Piper and the Puppet Company. Chris Piper starred in my “Harley Quinn, Servant of Two Masters” the first kid show I produced here back in 1982, directed by Susan Swarthout of Gary Young’s old Archaesus Mime Company. Paata Tsikurishvili starred in and directed a number of shows I produced here towards the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries. So its good to see these kids doing so well even though I am just part of the routing section now.