It is award time in our town: The Helen Hayes Awards for professional theatre. The Washington Area Theatre Community Honors (WATCH) Awards for community theater. The Mary Goldwater Awards for excellence even with limited resources presented by the Theatre Lobby.

The range of talents, and the number of companies and productions that show off that talent, are astonishing. The Helen Hayes Awards Organization reported that 56 professional companies mounted 7,269 performances of 348 productions before more than 1.9 million attendees last year. That was just the professional side of the ledger. The WATCH Awards judges attended another 95 productions by 25 different community theater companies.

Numbers don’t tell the entire story, however. The real story is the quality of the people who do the work.
People like:

Will Gartshore – A Canadian actor with a boyish charm and a voice seemingly designed for show music, who came here six years ago to co-star in the musical “Floyd Collins” at Signature Theatre in Arlington. Since then he has become one of the most consistently employed actors in the region. This year he was nominated for the Helen Hayes award for outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical not once but twice, walking away with the award for his superb performance as a youth who leads rebels against an evil toilet monopoly in the musical spoof “Urinetown” at Signature. He delighted children and adults alike in “A Year with Frog and Toad” at the Round House in Bethesda and also appeared in non-musicals at Signature and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

Rick Foucheux – A professional actor who received this year’s Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play for his fabulous performance in Studio Theatre’s “Take Me Out.” He’s a Silver Spring resident seen frequently at Studio, Folger and Round House where he just finished playing a husband worn out by his marriage in “The Retreat from Moscow.” He’s a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Acting Company where swiveled his hips in “Cooking with Elvis.” He even did a bit of singing as Pontius Pilate in Open Circle Theatre’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Kathleen Ackerley – Artistic Director of Longacre Lea Productions, a small but determined troupe that mounts challenging plays from Eugene Ionesco to Tom Stoppard at the black box theater in the basement of Catholic University’s theater department. She was among the recipients of this year’s Mary Goldwater Awards. Ackerley was also nominated for a Helen Hayes Award this year as the director and leader of the ensemble of the Catalyst Theatre Company’s production of her work “Shkspr Prjct” at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. She named her company Longacre Lea as a way to explain to people how to pronounce her last name, which is pronounced with a long “a.” Thus: Long-Acre Lea.

Bruce Alan Rauscher – An actor who can be found wherever there is a meaty part in professional or community theater. In the past he received the community theater WATCH Award for his work in “The Elephant Man” at Port City Playhouse and a Helen Hayes nomination for his work in professional theater for ”The Andersonville Trial.” Now he has been named for a Mary Goldwater Award for professional work at Washington Shakespeare Company (“Hapgood”) and the American Century Theater (“The Time of Your Life.”)

Craig Pettinati – Founding Artistic Director of the Kensington Arts Theatre, a community theater troupe in Maryland. He received the WATCH Award this year for directing the musical “Kiss of the Spider Women.” He has also brought a strong sense of style and quality to productions of “Assassins,” the Jonathan Larson musical “Tick Tick…Boom!” and “Side Show.”

Karma Camp – A local choreographer whose work here has given her opportunities throughout the country, including national tours (“Big,”) Broadway (“The Graduate”) and Off-Broadway (“Never the Sinner”). She’s worked throughout the Washington area at Arena (“Shakespeare in Hollywood,”) The Shakespeare Theatre Company (“The Comedy of Errors,“) Round House (“Speaking in Tongues,”) Woolly Mammoth (“The Clean House,”) Ford’s Theatre (”A Christmas Carol”,) Wolf Trap (“Street Scene”) and the Washington Opera (“Vanessa”). Her Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Choreography this year was for “Urinetown” at Signature where she has choreographed over a dozen shows.

Joe Calarco – A New York based director who works in the Washington area so often he calls it a second home. He first came to prominence with his play “Shakespeare’s R&J,” which was a hit in New York and London as well as here where he directed it at the Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill. He’s an Artistic Associate at Signature where he directed the world premiere of Norman Allen’s “Nijinsky’s Last Dance,” the musical “Side Show” and “Urinetown” all of which earned him Helen Hayes Awards.

Bruce Nelson – A Towson University graduate, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Lab and Howard Community College teacher and local actor who walked away with this year’s Helen Hayes Award for Supporting Actor for “The Violet Hour,” where he played an office clerk who finds his copy machine is churning out copies of documents from the future. His often quirky performances are always hard to forget as he tackles strange characters for The Shakespeare Theatre Company and Woolly Mammoth in Washington, Signature and the Washington Shakespeare Company in Arlington, and the Olney Theatre Center, Rep Stage and Everyman Theatre in Maryland. “The Violet Hour” was his fifth Helen Hayes Award nomination and the second time he won the award.

Joe Baker – A young actor who grew up participating in the work of the local Keegan Theatre has also been selected for a Mary Goldwater Award. He premiered the four-youth play “Waiting for the Slow Dance” for Keegan and has since begun to tackle a wide range of roles at a number of local companies. The award cites his work at SCENA Theatre where he was impressive in a three-character play, “This Lime Tree Bower,” at the Warehouse Theatre on 7th Street NW and at the American Century Theater where he delivered a nicely restrained performance as a teenager who seems always ready to explode in the revival of the 1950s “Tea and Sympathy.”

John MacDonald – The Producing Artistic Director of the Washington Stage Guild, which has been performing in recent years in rented space at 14th and T Streets NW. He was cited by the Theatre Lobby with a Mary Goldwater Award for his work directing such shows as George Bernard Shaw’s “Fannie's First Play.” A specialist in bringing the work of Shaw to life, MacDonald has now directed no fewer than fourteen of them for the Stage Guild which will soon have its own, brand-new theater at 8th and E Streets NW.

Dan Brick – The Mary Goldwater Award for this local actor cites work at SCENA Theatre, Solas Nua and Keegan Theatre. Long time followers of theater in the Washington area have been familiar with SCENA and Keegan, but Solas Nua? It burst on the scene just last year with its first production – Brick and co-founding company member Linda Murray in a high energy theatrical attack called “Disco Pig,” in which the Irish brogue and baby talk are so thick few in the audience could understand a word, but every emotion was clear. Solas Nua means “first light” in Irish.

Kristen Jepperson – Another actress who straddles the line between professional and community theater as well as the borders between jurisdictions throughout the region. The holder of a WATCH award for her hysterical performance as a country-western Brunhilde in the Little Theatre of Alexandria’s “Das Barbecü,” she is now treading the boards of Maryland’s Olney Theater Center in the professional production of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” Earlier this year she was waiting tables and tap dancing in “Mame” at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, using her experience in other dinner theaters in the area including Lazy Susan and the now defunct West End.

Awards can be a guide to the quality of work done at professional and community theaters throughout the region. The real test, however, is in the eye and ear of the beholder – so sample some of this work yourself. You’ll find a lot to like.

Brad Hathaway is the theater columnist for The Hill Rag/DC North. He is the editor/reviewer for Potomac Stages, a website and email service covering theater in Washington, Maryland and Virginia (www.PotomacStages.com). He has covered theater for Theatre.Com, Musical Stages Online, The Connection Newspapers and such magazines as Show Music and Entertainment Design. He and his wife live on Capitol Hill. He can be reached by email at Brad@PotomacStages.com.