The Vienna Theatre Company and the Little Theatre of Alexandria tied for the top musical award at the Washington Area Theatre Community Honors gala, which recognized 2004 shows in Virginia, Maryland and the District.
The Vienna troupe, upsetting the traditional big winners, took home seven awards at Sunday's ceremony for "Evita," the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical about Argentine icon Eva Peron. Little Theatre of Alexandria was honored for its production of "Cabaret," a dark look at Germany during the rise of the Nazis.
Silver Spring Stage won the award for outstanding play for "Bedroom Farce," a frantic English comedy.
About 500 area actors, producers, directors, designers and technical personnel filled the Birchmere music hall in Alexandria for the boisterous annual event. Twenty-four community theater companies in the region staged 90 productions last year, of which 25 were musicals and 65 plays.
"Theater is nothing more than life with all the dull bits cut out," emcee Mike Baker Jr. said at the start of the three-hour presentation, the fifth year of the WATCH awards.
In addition to the presentation of awards for acting, directing, music and technical work, the gala featured performances from the five shows nominated in the Outstanding Musical category, including "Annie," from Aldersgate Church Community Theatre in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County; "Working," from the Reston Community Players; and "The Rocky Horror Show," from the Kensington Arts Theatre in Maryland.
Little Theatre of Alexandria, which had the most nominations, 28, took six awards, including three major category wins for "Cabaret" and two major acting wins for the heartwarming comedy-drama "Over the River and Through the Woods."
Silver Spring Stage received three trophies for "Bedroom Farce," as did Fairfax's Providence Players, in its first year of the WATCH competition, for technical work on the comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner."
Last year's big winner, Reston Community Players, was nearly shut out, winning one award in a technical category.
Another traditional winner, the Elden Street Players of Herndon, picked up two technical awards and one major acting award. Scott Bailey won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play for the farcical comedy "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)."
Just as Little Theatre of Alexandria's "Cabaret" and Vienna's "Evita" tied for Outstanding Musical, the directors of both productions won for Outstanding Achievement in Direction of a Musical. Each mention of Gloria M. DuGan, the 71-year-old director of "Evita," elicited wild cheers. Although DuGan was modest and brief in her acceptance remarks, actress Molly Wilmesherr, who played the title role in "Evita" and won Outstanding Performance as a Lead Actress in a Musical, praised the director in an emotional acceptance speech.
Calling DuGan "dedicated, determined, worldly, strong and intelligent," she said, "If you're an actor or actress, if you ever hear of this woman doing a musical, do yourself a favor and audition -- don't even think about it."
Frank D. Shutts II directed "Cabaret," choosing the recent revival version of John Kander and Fred Ebb's musical, which has a book by Joe Masteroff. It's sleeker and darker than the original 1966 Broadway show and the 1972 film.
Shutts was not present, but producer Mary-Beth Toomey said the show had a message. "We took a very dark view of the musical, and we made it very chilling," she said. "It was important to Frank and the production cast that everyone understand that what happened in 'Cabaret' and what happened in Germany in 1939 hasn't really changed 100 percent yet. We wanted to bring that to life, and I think we succeeded."
