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Well, personally, 2009 basically blew for me. I spent the first half of it mostly in bed, watching perpetual Law and Order reruns and ingesting huge amounts of steroids that gave me cataracts and made me look like Jabba the Hut—all to combat a total of 18 months dealing with a nasty little Bernie Mac-killing respiratory ailment called sarcoidosis.
But it was in April, a little over a year into the treatment, when Keythe Farley and Eva Anderson called and asked me if I would be interested in playing Pete Dye, crusty-dusty frontier undertaker, in their new spaghetti western musical Stranger at the Bootleg Theatre. One doctor told me I would be crazy to take it on, but my pulmonologist said to Go For It. Guess which one I listened to?
Pete might have been the smallest part I’d ever played, which was fine with me, since Stranger was both a major challenge and a great healing experience. Yes, Virginia, art heals—and every day I arrived at rehearsals, seeing people putting on their kneepads and gathered around the piano singing Tony Bollas’ knockout score, all my fellow Strangers told me I was looking better and better. By the time we closed at the end of July, my weekly lung tests at Cedars showed clear skies and I began a two-month regimen to wean my poor ol’ body off those massive doses of prednisone.
In late September, I was finally done with the steroids, rapidly dropping the 80 lbs. I’d gained just as rapidly, when I began rehearsals again, this time for a much larger and more demanding role: Dr. Van Helsing in The House of Besarab, Terance Duddy and Ted Ott’s environmental adaptation of the Dracula legend to be performed at the gothic and historical Hollywood American Legion Hall near the Hollywood Bowl, the place where Tamara, the grandmamma of environmental theatre pieces, played for a mere 11 years.
During the rehearsals for Besarab, I went through two cataract surgeries, lost another major chunk of chunk, and grabbed a cane to combat the last steroid-induced indignity to my body, a severe muscle and joint syndrome called Cushing’s disease. Well, the show has now been open and a huge success since early November and our first extension has already been announced. In the last week, old Van Helsing has stopped limping and his cane has instead become a dandy Victorian-gent walking stick. I’m seeing 20/20 without glasses for the first time since childhood and, although there are some other major challenges in my life big enough to stop a train, I am here—and fuck me, I am working again. So there.
I wish Stranger and The House of Besarab could be eligible for TicketHolder Awards, but even I, a critic famous for routinely bashing my friends and praising my enemies, could not be that objective, I fear. I have voted Besarab one littleweeny award, but in an area where I had no input in its creation and I hope you with forgive me that, as the work was spectacular. I also wish I could have seen more LA theatre in 2009, as I believe I missed a lotta great work this year I was either not well enough or too busy with my own shows to attend.
That does not in any way diminish the qualities of the shows I do single out and honor here, surely all worthy of awards on anyone’s list for 2009!
1. Equivocation, Geffen Playhouse
2. August: Osage County, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre
3. Bronzeville, Robey Theatre Company at LATC
4. Tree, Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA, [Inside] the Ford
5. No Man’s Land, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
6. Love Water, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Open Fist Theatre
7. Farragut North, Geffen Playhouse
8. Kill Me, Deadly, Theatre of NOTE
9. The Receptionist, the evidEnce Room at the Odyssey Theatre
10. Fucking Men, Celebration Theatre
RUNNERS-UP: Come Back, Little Horny, 2nd Story Theater at Lost Studio; R.U.R., Action! Theatre at Art/Works; School for Suckers, Lillian
1. Parade, Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum
2. God Save Gertrude, Theatre @ Boston Court
3. Arias with a Twist, Redcat Theatre, Disney Hall
4. Altar Boyz, Celebration Theatre
5. Spamalot, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre
6. Life Could Be a Dream, Hudson Mainstage
7. Children of the Night, Katselas Theatre Company
8. Mary Poppins, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre
9. Minsky’s, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre
10. Legally Blonde, Pantages Theatre
RUNNERS-UP: Pippin, Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum; Divorce! The Musical, Hudson Theatre
Alan Mandell, No Man’s Land, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Lawrence Pressman, No Man’s Land, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
RUNNERS-UP: Sam Anderson, The Bird and Mr. Banks, Road Theatre Company; John Ross Clark, Molly Sweeney, Son of Semele; Dennis Dun, Po Boy Tango, East West Players; Harry Groener, Equivocation, Geffen Playhouse; Jack Patterson, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Blue Zone/NoHo Arts Center; Chris Pine, Farragut North, Geffen Playhouse; Geoffrey Rivas, Solitude, Latino Theater Co; Mel Rodriguez, Dias y Flores, Company of Angels
Estelle Parsons, August: Osage County, CTG/Ahmanson
RUNNERS-UP:Megan Mullally, The Receptionist, evidEnce Room at the Odyssey; Wendy Phillips, Come Back, Little Horny, Lost Studio; Esther Scott, Po Boy Tango, East West Players; Ann Colby Stocking, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Blue Zone/NoHo Arts Center
T.R. Knight, Parade, Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum
RUNNERS-UP: D.B. Bonds, Legally Blonde, Pantages; Christopher Fitzgerald, Minsky’s, CTG/Ahmanson; Tyrone Giordano / Michael Arden, Pippin, CTG/Taper; Gordon Goodman, Children of the Night, Katselas Theatre Co; Gavin Lee, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson; Jake Wesley Stewart, Altar Boyz, Celebration
Jill Van Velzer, God Save Gertrude, Theatre @ Boston Court
RUNNERS-UP: Terri Bibb, Children of the Night, Katselas Theatre Co; Ashley Brown, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson; Merle Dandridge, Spamalot, CTG/Ahmanson; Beth Leavel, Minsky’s, CTG/Ahmanson
Justin Huen, Dias y Flores, Company of Angels at the Alexandria Hotel
RUNNERS-UP: Patrick J. Adams, Equivocation, Geffen Playhouse; Brendan Bonner, Come Back, Little Horny, Lost Studio; Joshua Wolf Coleman, Love Water, EST/Open Fist; Brian Dare, Fucking Men, Celebration; Chet Grissom, The Bird and Mr. Banks, Road; Jason Paige, Come Back, Little Horny, Lost Studio; John Sloan, No Man’s Land, Odyssey; Connor Trinneer, Equivocation, Geffen Playhouse; Nicholas S. Williams, Kill Me, Deadly, Theatre of NOTE
Kirsten Vangsness, Kill Me, Deadly, Theatre of NOTE
RUNNERS-UP: Kathleen Mary Carthy, Kill Me, Deadly, Theatre of NOTE; Jennifer Finnigan, The Receptionist, evidEnce Room @ the Odyssey; Jeanne Sakata, Po Boy Tango, East West Players; Ashley-Nicole Sherman, Pericles Redux, Not Man Apart at the Kirk Douglas; Olivia Thirlby, Farragut North, Geffen Playhouse
Gregory Franklin, Divorce! The Musical, Hudson Theatre
David St. John, Parade, Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum
RUNNERS-UP: John Cariani, Minsky’s, CTG/Ahmanson; Steve Coombs, God Save Gertrude, Boston Court; Rick Holmes, Spamalot, CTG/Ahmanson; Troy Katsur / Dan Callaway, Pippin, CTG/Taper; Karl Kenzler, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson; Brian Letendre, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson; Christopher Sutton, Spamalot, CTG/Ahmanson; Paul Vogt, Minsky’s, CTG/Ahmanson
Ellen Harvey, Mary Poppins, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre
RUNNERS-UP: Melissa Bailey, Children of the Night, Katselas Theatre Co; Rachel Dratch, Minsky’s, CTG/Ahmanson; Harriet Harris, Pippin, CTG/Taper; Deidrie Henry, Parade, CTG/Taper; Natalie Joy Johnson, Legally Blonde, Pantages; Megan Lewis, Legally Blonde, Pantages; Lara Pulver, Parade, CTG/Taper; Mary VanArsdel, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson
Tree, Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA, [Inside] the Ford
RUNNERS-UP: August: Osage County, CTG/Ahmanson; Bronzeville, Robey Theatre; Come Back, Little Horny, Lost Studio; Fucking Men, Celebration; Kill Me, Deadly, Theatre of NOTE; Love Water, EST/Open Fist; School for Suckers, Lillian
Life Could Be a Dream, Hudson Mainstage
RUNNERS-UP: Altar Boyz, Celebration; Minsky’s, CTG/Ahmanson; Pippin, CTG/Taper; Parade, CTG/Taper; Spamalot, CTG/Ahmanson
Joseph Vega, Love Water, Ensemble Studio Theatre / Open Fist
RUNNERS-UP: Bryce Baldwin, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson; Katie Balin, Mary Poppins, CTG/Ahmanson; Jesse Bradley, Altar Boyz, Celebration; Gavyn Michaels, The Sermons of John Bradley, Lex Theatre; Jeff Olson, Fucking Men, Celebration; Dash Pepin, Pericles Redux, Kirk Douglas
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