2011 CONDA AWARDS

The 33^rd Annual presentation of the City of Newcastle Drama Awards took place at The Civic Theatre on December 2, 2011.

Seventeen professional and non-professional productions staged in the 12 months to October 31 won awards, with 13 companies represented, across 24 categories.

Biggest winner of the night was Pantseat Productions’ Avenue Q, which won the best non-professional musical production CONDA, plus two other awards.

Pantseat’s productions won a total of five of the overall 24. The other two awards went to its staging of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Four other productions each won two CONDAs.

Tantrum Theatre’s outdoor staging of William Shakespeare’s forest-set comedy As You Like It, Blank Page Theatre’s Pride and Prejudice: a play, Newcastle Festival Opera’s concert staging of the musical Candide each won two awards,as did Opera Hunter’s Annie Get Your Gun, with Stephanie Priest, in the title role, receiving the CONDA for best non-professional actress in a leading role in a musical for the second year in a row.

Stooged Theatre won two awards in the professional categories, with Rabbit named best professional production and Samantha Asser collecting the professional actress CONDA for her role in The Footage.

The leading non-professional actor and actress awards went to performers in two DAPA Theatre productions. Mitchell Cox won the actor award for his role in Arsenic and Old Lace and Emma Wood the actress trophy for Born Yesterday

Father Chris Bird and his wife Meri, co-founders and mainstays of Adamstown-based theatre group Theatre on Brunker, have won the 2011 Newcastle City Council Award for Outstanding Achievement in Newcastle Theatre.

For 15 years St Stephen’s Hall was dinner theatre group Intimate Theatre’s home, with the parish raising income from the preparation and serving of meals. The parish’s involvement increased over the years, with Chris Bird designing and building many sets and Meri Bird directing and appearing in shows.

When Intimate wound up at the end of 2009, the St Stephen’s parish decided to continue the dinner theatre operation and established Theatre on Brunker. The company’s success in the past two years is reflected in the 18 CONDA nominations and two awards the group’s shows won this year.

Five young people aged 14 to 19 were presented with the Newcastle Youth Theatre Development Grants, each of $350, which are sponsored by Newcastle groups and individuals and are aimed at assisting young people in improving and expanding their theatre skills. The recipients, who were nominated by Newcastle’s five youth theatre groups are: Molly Walker (DAPA Theatre), Jerry Ray (Hunter Region Drama School), Alexander Foster (Pantseat Productions), Drew Holland (Tantrum Theatre) and Joshua Broadbent (Young People’s Theatre).

The People’s Choice Award for best production, an award determined by the votes of Newcastle Herald readers, went to the Hunter Region Drama School production Disney’s Beauty and the Beast jr.

The CONDA Awards presentations featured musical numbers from productions staged in the past year. Like all awards nights, it wasn’t without its glitches. At one stage proceedings halted because a performer in a musical item was at that moment performing in the adjacent Playhouse as part of Newcastle’s Short and Sweet, testament to the city’s lively theatre culture. The presenters lost track of one award for a brief period, while thanking mum and ‘I really didn’t expect this,’ became the running acceptance speech gags.

THE 2011 CONDA WINNERS

Newcastle City Council Award for Outstanding Achievement in Newcastle Theatre: Fr. Chris and Meri Bird

Professional categories:

Production: Rabbit, Stooged Theatre

Actor: Brian Wark, Pride and Prejudice: a play

Actress: Samantha Asser, The Footage

Director: Carl Young, As You Like It

Achievement in music, sound and movement: Ian Cook, orchestra conductor, Candide

Achievement in set, costume, make-up and lighting: Scott Blick, set and costume design, The Bourgeois Gentleman  

Open categories:

Best new play written for a Newcastle company: The Cat Next Door, Anne Frost

Best special theatrical event: Candide, Newcastle Festival Opera

Non-professional categories:

Dramatic production: As You Like It, Tantrum Theatre

Musical production: Avenue Q, Pantseat Productions

Actor in a leading role in a drama or comedy: Mitchell Cox, Arsenic and Old Lace

Actress in a leading role in a drama or comedy: Emma Wood, Born Yesterday

Actor in a leading role in a musical: Matthew Predny, Avenue Q

Actress in a leading role in a musical: Stephanie Priest, Annie Get Your Gun

Actor in a supporting role: Philip McGrath, The Foreigner

Actress in a supporting role: Nyssa Hamilton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Juvenile male performance: Callan Purcell, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast jr

Juvenile female performance: Phoebe Clark, Pride and Prejudice: a play

Ensemble acting: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Pantseat Productions

Director: Isobel Denholm, The Club

Achievement in music and movement: Matt Bundy, musical director, Avenue Q

Achievement in costume design and make-up: Cathy McClelland and Vija Docherty, costume design, The Glugs of Gosh

Achievement in set design: Daniel Kavanagh, Annie Get Your Gun

Achievement in lighting and sound design: Daniel Kavanagh, projections and animations, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Images: Cast of Avenue Q; Brian Wark, left, as Jock, and Lee Mayne, as Geoff, in The Club (Theatre on Brunker); The Cat Next Door & The Glugs of Gosh. 

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