1996
1998 
Production and Director
The Best Production award for 1997 goes to Shakespeare Repertory's pre-stock market crash vision of The Merchant of Venice. The greed and vanity of 1920s New York, with scenes alternating between the flappers of the Hamptons and the businessmen of Wall Street, embody an exciting and fully-realized twist.
The Best Director award for 1997 goes to Calvin MacLean for his version of Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. MacLean utilizes the identical cast and roles as the Festival's Hamlet, and the productions are performed in repertory, with stunningly vital insight into echoing themes of fate and destiny and action versus inaction.
Performance
The Best Actress award for 1997 goes to Lucy Peacock for her fire-breathing Kate in the 1930s gangland version of The Taming of the Shrew at the Stratford Festival of Canada. The comic catalyst within an entertaining cartoon, Peacock's angry Kate beats her sister with a teddy bear, spins Petruchio around the stage by a handcuff, and shocks everyone else in an elaborate con game a la The Sting.
The Best Actor award for 1997 goes to Stephen Ouimette in the title role of Richard III at the Stratford Festival of Canada. Less a brute than a cunning serial killer, Ouimette's long-haired Richard is manic rather than maniacal, and more cunning than crazed, restlessly prowling the kingdom he so wishes to rule.
The Best Supporting Actor award for 1997 goes to Geordie Johnson as the mercurial Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet at the Stratford Festival of Canada. Johnson's Mercutio mesmerizes with the 1.4 Queen Mab speech, provides comic relief with his hungover struggle before the masque, and injects palpable tragedy into the turning point duel scene.
The Best Supporting Actress award for 1997 goes to Diane D'Aquila for her endearingly energetic Nurse in the Stratford Festival of Canada's Romeo and Juliet. D'Aquila's Nurse proves more girlish and spry - and pointedly less emotionally mature - than Juliet herself as she bounds across the stage and knee-slides to Juliet at the news of her newfound love, or when she lifts Juliet in her arms and spins her in circles after the impromptu marriage.
Technicals
The Best Scenic Design award for 1997 goes to Neil Patel for his contrasting sets in Shakespeare Repertory's The Merchant of Venice. The multi-colored but soul-crushing opulence of the Hamptons - played out in a liquor-soaked rich girl beach party - contrasts sharply with the darkly marbled financial center of Wall Street.
The Best Costume Design award for 1997 goes to Nan Cibula-Jenkins, also for Shakespeare Repertory's The Merchant of Venice. Cigar-smoking businessmen in tuxedoes with top hats and tails mix with their "flapper" wives and girlfriends wearing glittery evening dresses in a stunning modernization to the Roaring Twenties.
The Best Lighting Design award for 1997 goes to Anne Militello for Shakespeare Repertory's brutally modern Timon of Athens. The nightclub-style first act, complete with camera flashes and strip-club lighting effects, contrasts against the moonlit gloom of Timon's abandoned-car hideout in a junkyard.
The Best Sound and Music Design award for 1997 goes to Michael Bodeen and Miriam Sturm for the 1870s wild-west version of As You Like It at the Goodman Theatre. The cacophony of citizens bellied up to the bar or gambling at a big-city saloon resonates against the tumbleweed quiet of western Missouri, and an on-stage quintet - banjo, fiddle, bass, drums, and a variety of reeds - plays a country music original score as well as assorted reels and waltzes. Original songs enhance the production, as does the clever replacement of the closing divine intervention with an old-time country church hymn.