Awards

Boston's Tonys

by Carolyn Clay

SIMPLY MARVELOUS Kuntz was a winner at this year's Elliot Norton Awards.

It was a ribald and giddy time at the Ritz-Carlton Monday night as the 18th annual Elliot Norton Awards celebrated Boston theater. Practically everyone who took the stage seemed determined to mouth the name of John Kuntz's winning solo performance, Starfuckers, and Kuntz provided a routine in which he claimed to have won his award not through "talent and tenacity" but by sleeping with every critic on the selection committee. The 97-year-old Elliot Norton, having been appropriately genuflected to by the nearly 400 attendees, declared, "It's lovely to be here," adding, insouciantly, "It's lovely to be alive."

But on to the awards, bestowed annually by the Boston Theater Critics Association. The Pulitzer-winning Wit (which launched its national tour at the Wilbur Theatre) was honored as Outstanding Visiting Production, the Huntington Theatre Company's Mary Stuart as Outstanding Production by a Large Resident Company, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston's The Old Settler as Outstanding Production by a Small Resident Company, and Súgán Theatre Company's St. Nicholas as Outstanding Production by a Local Fringe Company. Kuntz won for Outstanding Solo Performance.

Robert Woodruff picked up Large Company directing honors for the American Repertory Theatre's Full Circle, while the New Repertory Theatre's Rick Lombardo was named outstanding director of a small-company production. Howard Jones was honored for Outstanding Design for his fanciful set for the Merrimack Repertory Theatre's Cloud Tectonics. Acting honors in the Large Company category went to Judith Light for her wrenching performance in Wit and to the ART's Will LeBow for his bravura turn as a sniveling Heiner Müller in Charles L. Mee's Full Circle. For performances with small companies, Jacqui Parker picked up a citation for her grounded turn as Elizabeth Borny in the Lyric's The Old Settler, and long-time Boston actor Richard McElvain was honored for playing a jaded Dublin theater critic who cavorts with vampires in Súgán's production of Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas. Boston Conservatory student Bridget Beirne, who knocked everyone's socks off in SpeakEasy Stage Company's Violet, was singled out for Outstanding Musical Performance.

Special citations were presented to Arts/Boston, which has been serving the Boston theater community (and providing discounted tickets) for 25 years, and to the Boston Theater Marathon, which for two years has presented a day-long extravaganza of 10-minute plays, involving almost everyone in the theater community, the day before "that other Boston Marathon." The top honor, the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, was shared by the Huntington Theatre Company's Michael Maso and the ART's Robert J. Orchard, two of the top managing directors in the country, who happen to run theaters across the river from each other in the same increasingly exciting theater town.