Adam Haas, pictured with Brighid Fleming, is one of two CalArts alumni nominated for Ovation Awards for their work in ‘The Nether.’ Christopher Kuhl was also nominated for lighting. | Photo: Craig Schwartz
The nominees for the 2013 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards were revealed on Monday (Sept. 16) at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles, with CalArts alumni and faculty well-represented in the mix. Nominations were announced at the ceremony by past Ovation award recipients and LA Stage Alliance Chief Executive Officer and CalArts alumnus Terence McFarland (MFA Interschool 03, BFA Film/Video 00).
Center Theatre Group (CTG) received the most nominations (29), followed by La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts (24), 3-D Theatricals (15), Rogue Machine (12) and Chance Theater (11). Most of the CTG-nominated productions—including The Nether, The Royale, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Second City’s A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!—also featured CalArts faculty and alumni who were nominated individually.
- Faculty member Tina Kronis earned four Ovation nominations. She’s recognized in both the choreography and direction categories for the productions Track 3 (at Theater Movement Bazaar and Bootleg Theater) and Hot Cat (Theatre of Note);
- Cricket Myers (Theater MFA 03) has three nominations for sound design: Circle X Theatre Company’s Bad Apples (Intimate Theatre) and in the Large Theatre category for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Second City’s A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!;
- Faculty member Lap Chi Chu was nominated for lighting for The Royal;
- Actor Adam Hunter (Acting BFA 07) was nominated as a feature actor for his performance in The Nether;
- Christopher Kuhl (Theater BFA 05) was nominated for lighting The Nether; and
- Dan Weingarten was also nominated in the lighting category for Heart of Darkness at the Actors Gang.
- **We just learned that Beth Kennedy (Theater MFA 91)was nominated for a featured actress in a musical for the Troubadour Theater Company’s A Midsummer Saturday Night’s Fever Dream.
Jeff Teeter (Theater BFA 06) was named a recipient of an Ovation Honor—which recognizes outstanding achievement, not among the standard theater award categories—for Video Design for On the Spectrum at the Fountain Theater.
This year’s Ovation Awards ceremony will take place on Nov. 3 at 7 pm at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. The LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards are the only peer-judged theatre awards in Los Angeles.
If we missed other Ovation-nominated CalArtians, please let us know in the comments section below.