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Paul Birchall’s Got it Covered

From the Ovations, to the Annenberg Center’s new artistic director, to
Spring Awakening on Broadway, to Stage Raw’s symposium on arts coverage 

Ovies Nominations

The Ovation Award Nominations are out  Those of us who love the theater know only too well that plays are like fireflies:  They live for a short time, are full of energy, but then they’re gone and it is like they never existed, save in blessed memory.  All that remains may be some old programs, a tattered review in your scrapbook, and, if you are really, really, really lucky, a plaque from one of the several awards that pop up like mushrooms around the town. 

In terms of presence and promotional heft, the Ovations are the biggest mushroom in the forest –– and what is particularly appealing about the Ovies is that they are peer-voted. It’s also true that one suspects there’s some backroom negotiating over which shows voters go to and which mysteriously slip through the cracks – but for the most part, the Ovations do what they’re intended to do most excellently, which is to provide a mainstream snapshot of the worthier projects that hit the Los Angeles area in the previous year. 

Truthfully, the list of nominees reads like a love letter to our local theater scene, and sincere congratulations are in order for everyone who’s on it.  I’m particularly pleased to see noms for some of my own personal favorites, including the just closed Permanent Image at Rogue Machine, the genius Failure: A Love Story at Coeurage, Trevor at Circle X, The Behavior of Broadus at Sacred Fools, and, of course, the Deaf-West Spring Awakening remount at the Wallis.   I’m also really pleased to see the mention of some productions that really shone like fireflies in the dark, from the LGBT Center’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? to Theatricum Botanicum’s August: Osage County.

Best wishes to the nominees, who can be found here:  https://thisstage.la/2015/09/announcing-the-2015-ovation-awards-nominees/.  The actual award ceremony will take place at the Ahmanson Theatre on November 9. 

Spring on the Great White Way

A quick peek at the Ovies list reminds us that this is the year for the Deaf-West Theater’s production of Spring Awakening, which this week made the jump to Broadway in a creative leap that could well be the archetype for the how theater generated in the 99-seat community crucifer should progress.  It is a pleasure to read the incredibly positive press Spring Awakening is getting in Manhattan – opening night was this weekend and glowing reviews following the Broadway opening are rolling in, with Charles Isherwood’s New York Times review calling the show “thrillingly inventive” and singling out Los Angeles leads Austin McKenzie and Sandra Mae Frank for particular praise.  Playbill just posted a tweet on their feed, noting that “there were 23 Broadway debuts on the Brooks Atkinson Stage” on opening night. 

It is also a paradigm that simply won’t exist in about a year’s time if the AEA has its way.

The small theaters are our local culture’s experimental hot houses, not the money machines that the union seems to think they are – it’s when the shows are allowed to grow and bloom (to paraphrase French Stewart) that the material success is to be found.  But, of course, the people in AEA responsible for the vendetta against the local theater scene have heard all of this already, and, with typical tin ear maladroitness, they don’t care.

Crewes on Board at the Wallis

Paul Crewes

The Wallis Annenberg, which certainly must be pleased about the success of Deaf West Theater’s Spring Awakening, as it played there a few months ago in its intermediate phase from 99seat stage to mid-size, has named its first artistic director and his resume sounds really intriguing.  American Theatre Magazine reports that the new AD, Paul Crewes, has been the artistic and creative director of Kneehigh Productions in the UK, which produces compelling and imaginative touring productions, some of which have played the Wallis in previous seasons. 

Crewes’s Kneehigh created a “nomadic theatre space” called the Asylum Tent, which serves as a home for many of the company’s productions.  The Kneehigh’s production of Brief Encounter, which played the Wallis a year ago, was quite delightful. Crewes sounds like a good fit for the complex and we hope he enjoys the balmy Los Angeles winters.

Visualizing the Invisible

Tonight marks “Visualizing the Invisible,” the first of the Stage Raw’s expert-curated panels on arts and arts coverage in Los Angeles, which is being held at Rogue Machine at 7:30.  It should be a thought-provoking panel, attended by many of local theater journalism’s wise mandarins.  Rogue Machine’s artistic director John Flynn will be serving on the panel, along with social media guru Tracey Paleo, LA Times Critic Charles McNulty, Stage Raw editor and LA Weekly Critic Steven Leigh Morris, and Stage Raw writer Bill Raden – all in a give-and-take moderated by LA Times Critic Margaret Gray. I’ll be there, too, come to think of it, but I’ll be hiding in the audience scribbling away and taking notes.  It should be a fascinating seminar on a subject that touches directly on our interests. It’s technically sold out, but if you RSVP, Stage Raw will make room for you.