2009
2011
Production and Director
The Best Production award for 2010 goes to The Merchant of Venice at Utah Shakespearean Festival, a lushly staged period-piece drama as well as a thoughtful examination of revenge rather than justice that features a pair of memorable lead performances. Honorable mention to a cerebral and stunning As You Like It at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
The Best Director award for 2010 goes to Des McAnuff for the intellectual contrast of rising Fascism against 1920s surreal artists in a beautifully staged As You Like It at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Honorable mention to Lucy Bailey for her unrelentingly brutal vision of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe in London, especially her clever use of groundlings tormented by witches within the depths of hell.
Performance
In a close race between actresses making their debuts at American Players Theatre, the Best Actress award for 2010 goes to Hillary Clemens in As You Like It, her charming performance as Rosalind narrowly besting honorable mention Ally Carey as Helena in All's Well That Ends Well. Clemens' plays both a beguiling romantic lead and a vulnerable young lady in a vibrant star-turn up the hill.
The Best Actor award for 2010 goes to Tony Amendola as Shylock at Utah Shakespearean Festival's The Merchant of Venice, with honorable mention to Jeremy Durbin's memorably unrepentant Iago at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Amendola's Shylock is by turns a sympathetic victim and a vindictive businessman, always profoundly human and consistently fascinating to behold.
The Best Supporting Actor award for 2010 goes to Kareem Bandealy as a red-skinned demon Caliban in Illinois Shakespeare Festival's The Tempest. Bandealy's Caliban scuttles like a crab, bald and black-eyed and clawed, speaking with the eloquence of an animalistic devil. Honorable mention to Chris Enweiler's surfer-dude pothead Launce at Seattle Shakespeare Company's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The Best Supporting Actress award for 2010 goes to Chillina Kennedy as the vacuous but sexy Lois in The Taming of the Shrew-inspired Kiss Me, Kate at Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Kennedy's Lois plays Bianca in a Taming of the Shrew fiasco, singing well and dancing even better in a wonderfully comedic role. Honorable mention to Magdalyn Donnelly for her smart, sassy and sexy Hostess in The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.
Technicals
The Best Scenic Design award for 2010 goes to Brian Sidney Bembridge for his deeply set exploration of decaying urban opulence and the dangers of stark city streets in Romeo and Juliet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
The Best Costume Design award for 2010 goes to Tom Piper for his impressively expansive array of modern styles - especially upon Cleopatra and her echo attendants - from tuxedoes and men suits to combat fatigues in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Antony and Cleopatra.
The Best Lighting Design award for 2010 goes to Lorenzo Savoini for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's 1920s vaudeville take on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, an engagingly original array of projections and spotlights amid splashes of color in a lightning-quick series of comic vignettes.
The Best Sound and Music Design award for 2010 goes to Todd Charlton and Michael Roth for the rousingly played 1920s music - guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass, fiddles, and piano - in As You Like It at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.