Fun Home at Playhouse on the Square
The 2018 Ostrander Awards were a big night for Playhouse on the Square’s Memphis premiere of Fun Home. This somber coming-of-age musical, which closed in May of this year, won a total of five awards including prizes for set design and lighting design, as well as direction and a best supporting actress plaque for perennial favorite Carla McDonald.
It was also a big night for Hattiloo Theatre, a rare company that produces more plays than musicals. With the theatre’s recent production of August Wilson’s gypsy cab drama Jitney, Hattiloo has now staged every play in August Wilson’s acclaimed “Century Cycle.” Jitney also netted a Best Dramatic Production award for Hattiloo. Jamel “JS” Tate picked up a best featured performer honor for Jitney, while Maya Geri Robinson and Jessica “Jai” Johnson won best female and supporting female awards for their Hattiloo performances in Lynn Nottage’s searing Congolese civil war drama, Ruined.
Bertram Williams and Jamel "JS" Tate in Jitney at Hattiloo. Photograph courtesy Hattiloo Theatre
And it was literally the biggest night ever for the Ostrander Awards, the annual ArtsMemphis and Memphis magazine-sponsored celebration of Memphis’ vibrant theater community. With a bigger, beefed-up band, several more musical numbers, and a shorter running time, the 2018 event packed an entire theater season’s worth of feelings into a night of wicked fun at The Orpheum. Laughter was abundant, but there were tears too and goosebumps crept over the audience repeatedly, like a pleasant contagion.
The annual ceremony, which began modestly enough in 1984, as a simple act of handing out play prizes, has grown over the decades into a proper mini-festival, where theater-makers and theater-lovers can spend a few more hours with favorite shows from the past season, while sampling the best work being created by top artists working in Memphis and Memphis-area playhouses.
This year’s audience was treated to heartfelt, heart-stopping, rafter-shattering samples from Falsettos, Dream Girls, The Wild Party, Fun Home, Violet, Shrek, Once, and The Drowsy Chaperone. Not every show was a winner, obviously, but every performance was.
A memorial assembled by theater judge Skip Howard paid tribute to all the regional artists who had died in the past year, transforming a cheering crowd into a sobbing but still-cheering mess. It’s been a tough season for local performing artists. Memphis this year said goodbye to storied singer, actor, and WKNO radio host Charles Billings, Front Street Theatre founder George Touliatos, musical theater legend Ann Sharp, indefatigable high school musical choreographer Otis Smith, and character actors David Muskin and Tony Anderson.
Memphis theaters also lost beloved actor and educator Greg Krosnes and David Foster, a vocally limber actor best known for his musical-theater prowess and bar-setting performances in shows like Ragtime, Next to Normal, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
This year’s host-free version of the Ostrander Awards was imagined by its new director, Elizabeth Shelly Perkins. Under her determined leadership the event packed in more musical content than ever before, giving Memphis’ theatrical talent permission to really show off on the one night of the year when the local acting community gets its chance to perform for itself. People who do shows don’t always get to see shows, and it’s hard to overstate the revival-like affirmation of being in a room filled with actors, singers, hoofers, writers, and musicians all seated together for the first time, to hear Larry Riley Rising Star Award winner Breyannah Tillman cut loose with “And I Am Telling You,” from Dreamgirls.
Or then falling into a stunned, nearly reverent hush when the cast of Once, led by stage veteran James Dale Green and his ringing mandolin, hammered out a ragged Irish ballad. But all this singing, dancing, and speechifying didn’t get in the way of some big surprises.
The 2018 Ostrander Award for “Oh No You Didn’t” went to character actor Chase Ring (The 39 Steps, Stage Kiss), who upstaged everybody, including Lifetime Achievement honoree Tony Isbell, when he took a knee and proposed to co-presenter, designer/choreographer Ellen Inghram.
In the process, Ring made note of the fact that Inghram is a repeat nominee and award winner, while Ostrander himself has never called out Ring’s name. The two are a known couple within the community, and it all just seemed like classic awards-ceremony banter between presenters until he took a knee, the engagement ring came out, and the anything-goes nature of live performance expressed itself as beautifully as it ever has.
(Well, as beautifully as it has since earlier this season at Theatre Memphis, when a bewildered audience member walked across the stage and into a scene during a performance of Twelve Angry Jurors. She was trying to use the nonfunctioning bathroom built into Jack Yates’ tragically un-nominated set design.)
Inghram said yes. The entire night was one happy ending after another.
2018 Ostrander Award Winners
Every year since 1984, Memphis magazine and ArtsMemphis (formerly the Memphis Arts Council) have celebrated the Memphis theater world’s biggest shows and brightest stars, and 2018 was perhaps the best-attended such event in the community’s history. Now held in The Orpheum Theatre (also a co-sponsor) every August, the Ostranders are named in honor of the late, great Jim Ostrander, a legendary Memphis actor. The awards honor top productions, designers, and performers from the previous theater season, in this case, 2017-18. Take a look through the list of our local theater community’s best and brightest, and make sure you get your tickets now for this year’s terrific offerings.
Community and Professional Division
Excellence in Set Design: Tim McMath — Fun Home, Playhouse on the Square
Excellence in Costume Design: Amie Eoff — Shrek, Theatre Memphis
Excellence in Props Design: Betty Dilley — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Germantown Community Theatre
Excellence in Hair/Wig/Makeup Design: Buddy Hart, Rence Phillips, and Charles McGowan — Shrek, Theatre Memphis
Excellence in Sound Design: Joe Johnson — Eurydice, New Moon Theatre Company
Excellence in Lighting Design: Zo Haynes — Fun Home, Playhouse on the Square
Excellence in Music Direction: Jeffrey Brewer — The Drowsy Chaperone, Theatre Memphis
Excellence in Choreography: Travis Bradley and Jordan Nichols — The Drowsy Chaperone, Theatre Memphis
Best Supporting Actress in a Drama: Erin Shelton — All Saints in the Old Colony, POTS@TheWorks; Jessica “Jai” Johnson — Ruined, Hattiloo
Best Leading Actress in a Drama: Maya Geri Robinson — Ruined, Hattiloo
Best Supporting Actor in a Drama: John Maness — All Saints in the Old Colony, POTS@TheWorks
Best Leading Actor in a Drama: Greg Boller — All Saints in the Old Colony, POTS@TheWorks
Best Supporting Actress in a Musical: Carla McDonald — Fun Home, Playhouse on the Square
Best Leading Actress in a Musical: Breyannah Tillman — Dreamgirls, Playhouse on the Square
Best Supporting Actor in a Musical: Napoleon Douglas — Dreamgirls, Playhouse on the Square
Best Leading Actor in a Musical: Justin Asher — Shrek, Theatre Memphis
Best Featured Performer in a Drama: Jamel “JS” Tate — Jitney, Hattiloo
Best Featured Performer in a Musical: Annie Freres — Shrek, Theatre Memphis
Ensemble: Falsettos — Next Stage @Theatre Memphis
Excellence in Direction of a Drama: Jeff Posson — All Saints in the Old Colony, POTS@TheWorks
Best Production of a Drama: Jitney — Hattiloo
Excellence in Direction of a Musical: Dave Landis— Fun Home, Playhouse on the Square
Best Production of a Musical: Fun Home — Playhouse on the Square
Gypsy Award: Christi Hall
Larry Riley Rising Star: Breyannah Tillman
Behind the Scenes: Andy Saunders
Best Original Script: All Saints in the Old Colony — POTS@TheWorks
College Division
Set Design: Brian Ruggaber — The Wild Party, U of M
Costume Design: Becca Bailey — The Secret in the Wings, U of M
Lighting Design: Nicholas F. Jackson — The Secret in the Wings, U of M
Music Direction: Jason Eschhofen — Nine, U of M
Choreography: Jill Guyton Nee — Nine, U of M
Supporting Actress in a Drama: Hiawartha Jackson — Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Southwest Tennessee Community College
Leading Actress in a Drama: Jordan Hartwell — The Servant of Two Masters, U of M
Supporting Actor in a Drama: Tyler Vernon — The Servant of Two Masters, U of M
Leading Actor in a Drama: Ryan Gilliam —Theophilus North, McCoy Theatre, Rhodes College
Supporting Actress in a Musical: Destiny Freeman — Violet, Rhodes / U of M co-production
Leading Actress in a Musical: Jenny Wilson — Violet, Rhodes College / U of M
Supporting Actor in a Musical: Jason McCloud — Violet, Rhodes College / U of M
Leading Actor in a Musical: Deon’ta White — Violet, Rhodes College / U of M
Featured/Cameo Role: Jaylon Jazz McCraven — Violet, Rhodes College / U of M
Large Ensemble: The entire cast of ladies — Nine, U of M
Small Ensemble: Ciara Campbell, Jhona Gipson, Rashidah Gardner, Mary Ann Washington, and Hiawartha Jackson — Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Southwest Tennessee Community College
Excellence in Direction of a Drama: Danica Horton — The Servant of Two Masters, U of M
Excellence in Direction of a Musical: Karissa Coady — Violet, Rhodes College / U of M
Best Production: Violet — Rhodes College / U of M co-production
