Seattle Theatre Writers "Leak" Award Nominations
The Seattle Theatre Writers, a group of local critics, have begun releasing details about the 2015 Gypsy Award nominations in a slow trickle via their Facebook page. I'm pleased to be nominated for both Our Town and Cabaret in the category of Excellence in Scenic Design! Thanks Gypsies, and congratulations to all the other nominees!
Excellence in Set Design (Larger Theater Company) nominee:Matthew Smucker - Our Town (Strawberry Theatre Workshop)
Posted by Seattle Theater Writers on Thursday, January 7, 2016
Excellence in Set Design (Larger Theater Company) nominee:Matthew Smucker - Cabaret (Village Theatre)
Posted by Seattle Theater Writers on Thursday, January 7, 2016
To recap: All Five Nominees for the 2015 Gypsy Rose Lee Award for Excellence in Set Design (Larger Theater Company)...
Posted by Seattle Theater Writers on Thursday, January 7, 2016
See the entire slate of nominees across all categories here.
And in more awards news...
Theatre Puget Sound's 2015 Gregory Award nominations were released bit by bit on Facebook in daily allotments over the past week. Strawberry Theatre Workshop's Our Town and ACT's The Invisible Hand are both up for "Outstanding Production", and The Village's Cabaret was nominated as "Outstanding Musical." The set for The Invisible Hand received a nomination as "Outstanding Scenic Design" as well! Congratulations to all the nominees! Look here for the complete list for the 2015 Gregories.
Cabaret Reviews Are In
Here is what area reviewers have been saying about The Village Theatre's production of Cabaret, now open in Issaquah until July 3:
Simply put, Cabaret is one of the best productions I’ve ever seen at Village Theatre. - Issaquah Press
Matthew Smucker’s decoratively cluttered set is ingenious and eye-filling. - Seattle Weekly
Cabaret easily takes home the award for visuals. If No Way To Treat a Lady’s set design was notable for clean, cartoonish minimalism, Cabaret’s is a maximalist, textured (and literally textual) feast of stuff. The Kit Kat Klub is a womb of light and motion crowded on all sides by the scraps, swastikas, posters, propaganda and news clippings of the Nazi era in Germany. This theme creeps into scene changes: Bradshaw’s apartment wall is a page from the show’s original source novel Goodbye to Berlin. The obsession with paper ephemera works powerfully as a visual metaphor for black-and-white reality creeping in on the characters’ delusions. - Bellevue Reporter
As we walk into the theatre, Matthew Smucker's brilliant set is in disarray. Brian Earp as Cliff walks in and, as the Kurt Weill-like strains of "Willkommen" start to vamp under him, we see that he is an older, wiser Cliff, returned to the vestiges of his youthful playground. Suddenly, the broken "Cabaret" sign starts to rise, and is realigned, and before you know it, we are back in 1930s Germany, though Smucker (within Yorkey's framework) has already aced his task, with that disheveled opening tableau being as masterful as the opening tableau Boris Aaronson designed, in a likewise deserted theatre, for the original Broadway version of Follies. - Talkin' Broadway
Happy opening, Cabaret!
Happy Issaquah opening to the Village Theatre's Cabaret tonight! "Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome... Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret!"
Behind the scenes at Cabaret Load In
The Village Theatre is in the midst of scenic load in for the upcoming production of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, with technical rehearsals starting in earnest next week. Below are a few behind-the-scenes photos from the installation process. The production, directed by Brian Yorkey, opens in Issaquah, Washington, May 14th.
Willkommen!
I am so very excited to see all of these fine faces in person when The Village Theatre's production of Cabaret starts its rehearsal process tomorrow evening. The construction of the collage-inspired scenery is already well underway In the scene and paint shops. See a few of the model images in the slideshow below, and come to the production itself, directed by Brian Yorkey, starting May 14th!
