My Fair Lady Lifts Lyric Stage To New Heights; DFW Theater Critics (Who Include Elaine) Honor Top Actors And Shows.

Comments (0) By Elaine Liner Thursday, Sep 16 2010

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Best acting ensembles: Undermain's Endgame; Upstart's subUrbia; Circle Theatre's Bach at Leipzig and Opus.

Directors: Robin Armstrong, Bach at Leipzig (Circle); Andy Baldwin, Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 (Theatre Arlington); Sharon Benge, Master Harold...and the Boys (African American Repertory Theater); Cheryl Denson, Funny Girl (Lyric); Katherine Owens, Port Twilight (Undermain); Tom Parr IV, Alice in Wonderland (White Rock Pollution); Alan Shorter, Opus (Circle); Stan Wojewodski Jr., Endgame (Undermain).

James Jamison

Daniel R. Johnson, as Freddy, stalks Kimberly Whalen’s Eliza on the street where she lives in Lyric Stage’s My Fair Lady.

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Best new plays or musicals: The Road to Qatar! by Stephen Cole and David Krane (premiered at Lyric Stage); Long Way Go Down by Zayd Dohrn (premiered at Kitchen Dog Theater); Crystal City 1969 by David Lozano and Raul Trevino (premiered at Cara Mia Theatre Co.).

Creative contributions: Design teams of Port Twilight (Undermain) and Sherlock Holmes in the Crucifer of Blood (Theatre Three); Robin Armstrong, fight choreography and costume design, Bach at Leipzig (Circle); Bryan Wofford, set design, Boom and Long Way Go Down (Kitchen Dog); Cindy Ernst and Zachary Broadhurst, set design, subUrbia (Upstart); Randel Wright, set design, Talk Radio (Upstart); Jeffrey Schmidt, for his season of design at Theatre Three, Echo Theatre and the Festival of Independent Theatres.

Best touring productions: August: Osage County; Beast of Taylor Mac; Spring Awakening; Xanadu.

Emerging artist award: Actor Joey Folsom, for performances in a series of challenging productions, including Upstart's Talk Radio and subUrbia.

Special citations: To Dallas Theater Center's production of Neil LaBute's trilogy, The Beauty Plays, for innovation, ensemble acting (by Regan Adair, Aleisha Force, Matthew Gray, Abbey Siegworth, Lee Trull, Christina Vela, Steven Walters), direction (Joel Ferrell, Matthew Gray, Kevin Moriarty) and the inclusion of lively post-show audience talk-backs. And to Fred Curchack, for his work as a renaissance theater artist.

Members of DFW Critics Forum are Alexandra Bonifield, CriticalRant.com; Martha Heimberg, Turtle Creek News; Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallas Voice; Mark Lowry, David Novinksi and Perry Stewart, TheaterJones.com; Punch Shaw, Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Lawson Taitte and Joy Tipping, The Dallas Morning News; and me.