The 4th annual
“Scottie” awards.
These
awards are collated basically as a tribute the people who gave me a lot of
pleasure in 2011 and whose work I admire.
Best Community
Theatre production: Brisbane Artts Theatre’s So You Die a Little By Tony Brockman and Matthew Ryan Director Gregory Rowbotham
produced one of the best pieces of community theatre direction I have seen in a
long time. His casting was excellent and he had an absolute understanding of
the text and characters. His set too created an atmosphere of those dingy back
offices in government buildings but with added trappings like mysterious doors,
lots of strange pipes and odd exits. It wasn’t exactly eye candy, but it gave
the audience plenty to look at!
Ballet
Best Production: Queensland Ballet’s
production of Swan Lake. This was a reprise
of the 2008 re-working of the classic by Queensland Ballet’s artistic director François
Klaus and it was even better than the original
Best Male dancer: Keian Langdon as Rasputin in Swan Lake and Arthur in King Arthur and the tales of Camelot, both
Choreographed and directed by Francois Klaus. His great work has seen him promoted
to principal dancer
Best Female Dancer: Clare Morehen as Kschessinska,
and Odette in Swan Lake
Opera
Best Production: Opera Queensland
production of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte This was budget opera with a cast of six, five
making a role debut, no chorus, and no elaborate set, but it was a pleasing and
enthralling production and showed why the opera is one of the most performed
throughout the world.
Best Female
performance: Emily Burke’ as Despina in Cosi fan Tutte.
She played the maid as someone with a wicked sensed
of humour and a good time girl who enjoys her sex where she can get it.
Best Male performance: Stephen
Bennett as Don Alfonso also in Cosi fan Tutte he played out his devilish plan to ruin the lives of
four innocents and his dark voice helped his portrayal
Theatre
Best Independent Dama: Water Wars By
Elaine Acworth and directed by Shaun Charles Umber Productions La Boite Indie production. It’s Elaine
Acworth’s
latest play and is set some time in the not too distant future when global
warming has created a drought even bigger than the last one we had in Australia
and water restrictions are even more draconian. It tells the story of three households
in a street and how they deal with the lack of water and the Water Police who
roar over head in helicopters to catch out cheats. It’s all about effects of
conservation and trauma.
Best Independent
comedy: Fawlty
Towers the Dining Experience,
Interactive Theatre. This was the
funniest dining experience I have had since for years. It was a brilliant night
with carbon-copies of Basil Fawlty, Manuel, and Sybil
creating chaos left right and centre and leaving the hapless diners helpless
with laughter.
Best Independent Musical: Cabaret by
Zen Zo Zo This was the most amazing production of Cabaret
I have ever seen. It stripped the show of its glitzy Liza Minnelli image and
cut right to the soul of the tale. The Kit Kat Club had lost its glamour and
had become a seedy dive where the German thrill-seekers and gays of pre-Hitler
German could meet.
Best Male Actor in an
independent production:
Lucas
Stibbard in The Escapists’ Boy Girl Wall, newly created to be played in the round at La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre
Best Female actor in
an independent production: Anna
Goldsworthy as herself and in the fascinating Piano Lessons by Anna Goldsworthy.
Best Director in an
independent production: Michael Futcher
for Piano Lessons.
Best Musical: Dr Zhivago One thing you can say about John
Frost, he doesn’t produce cheap imitation musicals. If he does it, he does
properly – and he did it with Dr Zhivago. It was a beautifully mounted production
Best male performer
in a musical: Anthony
Warlow in the title role of Yuri Zhivago
Best female performer
in a musical: Lucy Maunder as Lara in Dr Zhivago.
Best Drama
Production: La Boite’s
production of Ruben Guthrie by
Brendan Cowell and directed by David Berthold. It was just brilliant with so many different facets.
Best comedy
Production: The La Boite and
Sydney Theatre Company co-production ofEdward Gant’s Amazing
Feats of Loneliness by Anthony Neilson directed by Sara Goodes.
This was a bizarre, insane and incredibly funny piece
of theatrical magic.
Best Male Actor: Gyton Grantley in the title role of Ruben Guthrie.
Best Female actor: Melanie Zanetti for
her amazing interpretation of Eliza Doolittle in QTC’s
Pygmalion.
Best Director: Michael
Gow for Pygmalion.
As a director I found Michael to be either brilliant or terrible. This time he
was just brilliant.
Best Support Male
actor: Ross Balbuziente. He played Casca
and Octavius in La Boite’s
production of Julius Caesar and as Casca he stole every scene he was in.
Best Support Female
Actor:
Kathryn Marquet in Ruben
Guthrie as the dogma-ridden Virginia.
Best New Drama: Songs
for Nobodies, By Joanna Murray-Smith Directed by Simon Phillips Performed
by Bernadette Robinson Brisbane Powerhouse
Best New Comedy: Oberon.
This is a new version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Heartbeast
Theatre Company, a recent addition to the profit share stage.
Best Lighting design: David
Walters for the Queensland Ballet’s production of Swan Lake
Best Design: Michael
Scott Mitchell for his technically innovative work on Dr Zhivago.
GOLD “SCOTTIES”
David Walters for a year of consistently
imaginative lighting design in theatre and ballet.
David Bertholdt for
bringing brilliant new life to la Boite Theatre
Company