Puppet Takeover at 32nd HELEN HAYES AWARDS

Constellation Theatre's adult puppet musical Avenue Q swept the 32nd annual Helen Hayes Awards honoring professional theater in Washington, D.C., on Monday with seven awards including outstanding musical.

Two other international productions shone brightly at the awards held at the Lincoln Theatre as well, particularly Shakespeare Theater Company's Salome, its choice for the big Women's Voices Theater Festival, which won seven awards including best play. GALA Hispanic Theatre's contemporary take on the tale by poet Federico Garcia Lorca, Yerma, won six honors including best non-Equity play for the company marking its 40th anniversary.

And there three awards were given to Happenstance Theatre's IMPOSSIBLE! A Happenstance Circus including outstanding ensemble and the Robert Prosky Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for a top-hatted Mark Jaster, who said he was first nominated 30 years ago.

After being shut out in a number of categories, Arena Stage's Dear Evan Hansen, to open on Broadway this year, eventually won outstanding musical and outstanding director, Michael Greif.

Winner of the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company was the Welders, a collective of five playwrights whose goal was to write five new plays in three years and then turn the company over to a new quintet of playwrights, which they said they would do this year.

In all, there were 47 different awards given from among 236 nominations, drawn from 79 productions at 35 theaters. That meant an awful lot of envelope ripping, and a brisk pace, but no where near the breakneck pace of last year, when recipients ran to the podium in stocking feet to make the most of limited time for acceptance speeches.

"Can I say how happy I am that everybody kept their shoes on this year?" presenter Meridith Burkus, managing director of Studio Theater, said at one point.

Both Clyde Alves and his wife Robin Hurder won best supporting actor and actress in Shakespeare Theatre Company's Kiss Me, Kate, but she couldn't be there; she was on Broadway in Chicago.

A number of winners were also not present. Some, such as Yael Farber, outstanding director of a play, were directing work in Paris. Nobody expected Angela Lansbury, perhaps the biggest name among the nominees for her work in Blithe Spirit at the National Theater, to actually show up. But the winner in that category, Outstanding Performer in a Visiting Production, Dani de Waal, for Once at the Kennedy Center (which also won best visiting production) was also not there.

Those who were present still only had 45 seconds to give their thanks. Borrowed from the Oscars in this year's Helen Hayes Awards, which was directed by Muriel von Villas, were prepared lists of people to thank that were to be projected on a screen as the winner came forth. Some lists were packed with up to three dozen names and put in type so small nobody could hope to read them.

The other thing that was borrowed was having Luke S. Frazier and the American Pops Orchestra begin that rude tradition of playing off winners in the middle of speeches that had the audacity to go, say, 50 seconds.

Some, like Clyde Alves, who won best supporting actor in a musical for Avenue Q, pleaded, "Please don't!"

Mabel Del Pozo, the exuberant actress who won outstanding lead actress in a play at GALA's Yerma, had to keep talking over the music. "I'm so happy!" she repeated.

E. Faye Butler and Lawrence Redmond, who were introduced as hosts at the beginning of the nonstop, two hour event began the show by singing "The Best is Yet to Come," which recently had also been Bryce Harper's walk-on music.

Butler returned to close the event by saluting the Women's Voices Theater Festival, whose plays received 13 nominations, with a version of Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" that had the audience happily singing the background. They were, after all, show people.

The full list of Helen Hayes Awards winners, which are divided among "Helen" winners and "Hayes" winners depending on the number of Equity Acts involved in a production.

HELEN Awards

Outstanding Play - "Yerma," GALA Hispanic Theatre

Outstanding Musical - "Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

The Robert Prosky Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play - Mark Jaster, "IMPOSSIBLE! A Happenstance Circus," Happenstance Theatre

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play - Mabel Del Pozo, "Yerma," GALA Hispanic Theatre

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical - Kevin McAllister, "Ragtime, the Musical," Toby's Dinner Theatre

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical - Katy Cardiff," Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

Outstanding Ensemble in a Play - ""IMPOSSIBLE! A Happenstance Circus," Happenstance Theater

Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical - "Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play - Jon Hudson Odom, "Passion Play," Forum Theatre

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play - Lolita Marie, "Doubt, a Parable," 1st Stage

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical - Vaughn Ryan Midder, "Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Musical - Emily Zickler, "Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

Outstanding Director of a Play - Jose Luis Arellano Garcia, "Yerma," GALA Hispanic Theatre

Outstanding Director of a Musical - Allison Arkell Stockman, "Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

Outstanding Musical Direction - Jake Null, "Avenue Q," Constellation Theatre Company

Outstanding Choreography in a Musical - Jessica Beth Redish, "Silence! The Musical," Studio Theatre

Outstanding Choreography in a Play - Kelly Maxner, Mollye Maxner, "Occupied Territories," Theater Alliance

Outstanding Costume Design - Sabrina Mandell, "IMPOSSIBLE! A Happenstance Circus," Happenstance Theatre

Outstanding Lighting Design - Christopher Annas-Lee, "Yerma," GALA Hispanic Theatre

Outstanding Sound Design - Mariano Marin, "Yerma," GALA Hispanic Theatre

Outstanding Set Design - Silvia de Marta, "Yerma," GALA Hispanic Theatre

HAYES Awards

Outstanding Play - "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Musical - "Dear Evan Hansen," Arena Stage

The Robert Prosky Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play - Ramzi Choukair, "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play - Dawn Ursula, "Queens Girl in the World," Theater J

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical - Anthony Warlow, "Man of La Mancha," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical - Barrett Wilbert Weed," Cabaret," Signature Theatre

Outstanding Ensemble in a Play - "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical - "Cabaret," Signature Stage

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play - Ian Merrill Peakes, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," Folger Theatre

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play - Maggie Wilder, "Rapture, Blister, Burn," Round House Theatre

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical - Clyde Alves, "Kiss Me, Kate," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Musical - Robyn Hurder, "Kiss Me, Kate," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Director of a Play - Yael Farber, "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Director of a Musical - Michael Greif, "Dear Evan Hansen," Arena Stage

Outstanding Musical Direction - Jon Kalbfleisch, "West Side Story," Signature Theatre

Outstanding Choreography in a Musical - Michele Lynch, "Kiss Me, Kate," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Choreography in a Play - Ami Schulman, "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Costume Design - Julie Weiss, "Destiny of Desire," Arena Stage

Outstanding Lighting Design - Donald Hooker, "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Sound Design - Christopher Baine, "When She Had Wings," Imagination Stage

Outstanding Set Design - Susan Hilferty, "Salome," Shakespeare Theatre Company

ADDITIONAL awards

Outstanding Original Play or Musical Adaptation - David Ives, "The Metromaniacs," Shakespeare Theatre Company

Outstanding Production, Theater for Young Audiences - "Wiley and the Hairy Man," Imagination Stage

Outstanding Visiting Production - "Once," The Kennedy Center

Outstanding Performer, Visiting Production - Dani de Waal, "Once," The Kennedy Center

The Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play or Musical - Martyna Majok, "Ironbound," Round House Theatre

The John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company: The Welders