A fluffy Parisian farce set in the swinging '60s, a sci-fi musical about cybernetic sex toys, a minor Shakespearean rom-com set in Windsor, Ont. and a gruesome drama about two desperate Dublin women and a singing serial killer were among the big winners at the 31st annual Jessie Richardson awards held Monday night at the Commodore Ballroom.
The Jessies are Vancouver's version of the Tony Awards and are divided into three categories - Large Theatre, Small Theatre and Theatre for Young Audiences - along with a handful of special prizes. With the demise of the Vancouver Playhouse last year, awards in the first category have essentially become a two-horse race between the Arts Club Theatre Company, who operate year-round in three different buildings, and Bard on the Beach, who offer four shows each year at Vanier Park from June to September.
The Arts Club garnered the most awards in total with six. Their adaptation of the widely produced French bedroom comedy Boeing-Boeing earned three Jessies: Andrew McNee for best leading actor, Nicola Lipman for best supporting actress and Amir Ofek for set design. Gina Chiarelli was rewarded for her high-note performance as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Master Class, and Robert Moloney won for best supporting actor for dual roles in the racially charged Clybourne Park. The Unplugging, a new work by Yvette Nolan, also won for best original script.
Bard on the Beach's crowd-pleasing production of The Merry Wives of Windsor picked up four Jessies, including best director (Johanna Wright), best costume designer (Drew Facie), best musical director (Benjamin Elliott) and best production. Lighting designer Gerald King also won for his work in MacBeth.
Pi Theatre's production of Irish playwright's Mark O'Rowe nightmarish Terminus - which Courier theatre reviewer Jo Ledingham described as "thrilling, exhilarating, jolting, bumpy and yet sometimes funny" - picked up the most hardware in the hotly contested small theatre categories. John Emmet Tracy, a Chicago native relatively new to the Vancouver theatre scene, won for best leading actor for his role in a play comprised of interlocked rhyming monologues, and Terminus also ended up winning for best lighting (Alan Brodie) and best overall production. Leading actresses Pippa Mackie and Leanna Brodie both lost out to Erla Faye Forsyth for her role as Mary in Pacific Theatre's How to Write a New Book for the Bible.
The Virtual Stage's original show Broken Sex Doll picked up two Jessies (Anton Lipovetsky for best sound design and Drew Facie, again, for best costume design), as did Théâtre la Seizième for their production of Porc-épic (France Perras for best supporting actress and Craig Holzschuh for best director). ITSAZOO Productions' Brett Harris won for best supporting actor with Mojo, Pam Johnson built the winning set for Touchstone Theatre's Shelter from the Storm, and the Boca Del Lupo team won for significant artistic achievement for Photog, an original piece featuring the work of award-winning war photographers.
Where the Wild Things Are, produced by Presentation House in association with Manitoba Theatre for Young Audiences, swept the Theatre for Young Audiences category with a total of four awards.
Visit jessies.ca to see the complete list of award winners. afleming@vancourier.com twitter.com/flematic
