TPS Announces Short-List For Awards

M.J. Sieber and Paul Morgan Stetler in NCTC's well-loved "The Adding Machine". Photo by Chris Bennion

Well! No sooner do I mention it than I get a press release from TPS announcing the short-listed names for the first (hopefully annual) Gregory Awards. And boy can I call it: New Century Theatre Company all over the place. Here's the run-down:

Outstanding actor: Hans Altwies ( The Seafarer, Seattle Rep ), Charles Leggett ( Merchant of Venice, Seattle Shakespeare ), M.J. Sieber (for Strawberry Workshop 's Elephant Man and Guttenberg: The Musical ), and Paul Morgan Stetler ( NCTC's The Adding Machine ).

Outstanding actress: Kimberly King ( ACT's Becky's New Car ), Hana Lass ( Intiman's Crime & Punishment or Seattle Shakespeare's The Tempest ), Amy Thone (NCTC's The Adding Machine ), and Billie Wildrick ( 5th Avenue's Sunday in the Park With George ).

Outstanding director: Kurt Beattie (ACT's Becky's New Car or Seattle Children's Pharaoh Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire ), Julie Beckman (Strawshop's Elephant Man ), John Langs (NCTC's The Adding Machine ), and Allison Narver (NCTC's Orange Flower Water ).

Person to watch: Vincent Delaney, Etta Lilienthal, Don Darryl Rivera, and Robertson Witmer.

Outstanding production: NCTC's The Adding Machine , Strawshop's Elephant Man , ACT's Eurydice , and Seattle Rep's The Seafarer .

Theatre of the year: Intiman, ACT, New Century Theatre Company, Strawberry Workshop.

Finally, it's worth noting that long-time Seattle theatre photographer Chris Bennion is being recognized for his years of work with the 12th annual Greg Falls Sustained Achievement Award. For three decades, Bennion's been making Seattle's actors look good whether they deserve it or not, and he's definitely deserving of the honor.

For my money, if there's justice in the world, Hana Lass will win outstanding actress. Amy Thone is good, but Lass delivered more times last season. Kimberly King is good, too, but not mind-bogglingly so. For my money, the real race in the best actor category is between Altwies and Stetler, both of whom were phenomenal in the roles they were nominated for. I do know a lot of people are partial to M.J. Sieber, though.

As for best production, the one that doesn't deserve to be there is Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice . Ruhl's a fine writer, but in both Eurydice and The Clean House a couple years earlier at ACT, the production couldn't overcome her rather stale, cardboard-cutout approach to intellectual theatre. The Adding Machine blew most people out of the water, though the script blows (at least the second half), which NCTC couldn't correct for. In terms of ambition, it might have an edge, but in terms of consistent strength, the competition is between Strawshop's Elephant Man and the Rep's The Seafarer .

As for "person to watch," I have mixed feelings. Etta Lilienthal is a cool choice. She was a designer both for the Maureen Whiting Company's The Myth of Us and for Keith Hitchcock's brilliant solo show, Muffin Face . So count her as the homage to the small and experimental companies. She's a good choice. Robertson Witmer is known primarily for his sound design work, on shows like Orange Flower Water and The Tempest . He's very good as a performer, too. I just saw him in The French Project , and I can't say I have anything to complain about, but unless I'm missing something it's an out-of-the-blue choice. I guess being in " Awesome " gets you a lot of cred (and should, to my mind, put you a little beyond up-and-comer status). Don Daryl Rivera seems a promising choice; he's a musician an actor who's been appearing regularly in the likes of Strawshop's Elephant Man . And then there's Vincent Delaney . I honestly can't remember having seen any of his plays over the last year, and have to figure out how I missed them. Oddly enough, there was an article on just this problem in The New York Times this morning.

As for outstanding local theatre company, the only one I really think deserves a lot of credit is ACT. NCTC has a banner year, but in part that's due to ACT's support of emerging arts organizations, which they've done better than the Intiman. Strawberry Workshop is the dark horse, since they lack either ACT or Intiman's funding, and have done brilliant work nonetheless, scoring actors most companies their size can't. So in terms of quality, Strawshop gets the award; in terms of adding to and benefiting the larger theatre community, ACT is in the lead.

And finally, there's best director. I feel harsh saying this, but honestly, I don't think either Narver or Langs deserve to win. NCTC had a great season, as everyone seems to agree, but both shows were bad scripts carried by good actors. Neither director seemed to have enough vision to solve those problems, and short of giving the directors credit for having the best casts in town, they didn't do enough to really justify winning. Becky's New Car wasn't especially brilliant, either, which leaves me with Elephant Man , which was.