2009 L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award Nominees Announced; Allison Janney, Dolly Parton, Leslie Uggams Recognized

Nominees for the 2009 L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Awards were announced on the evening of Monday, October 19 at A Noise Within in Glendale. The nominations were presented by 2008 Ovation Award winners Barry Lynch, Jennifer Paz, Randy Rogel Joe Spano and Robert J. Townsend, along with LA Stage Alliance Executive Director Terence McFarland.

Center Theatre Group garnered the most nominations, followed by the Geffen Playhouse, the Troubadour Theatre Company and the El Portal Theatre. The CTG productions honored with nominations are "9 to 5: The Musical" (7), "The Little Dog Laughed" (6), "Minsky's" (5), "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" (4), "Lydia" (2), and "The School of Night" (1). The Geffen productions are "Louis & Keely, Live at the Sahara" (5), "Farragut North" (3), "Beethoven As I Knew Him" (2), "Time Stands Still" (2), and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1). The nominated Troubadour Theatre Company productions are "Alice in One Hit Wonderland 2: Through the Looking Glass" (6) and "As U2 Like It" (5). The El Portal Theatre's production of "Smokey Joe's Café" received 10 nominations.
Individual nominees garnering more than two nominations include Matt Walker (4 - two nominations for Director of a Musical, and two for performing in Acting Ensembles), Cricket S. Myers (4 - all for Sound Design), and Ann Closs-Farley (3 - all for Costume Design).

A new category has been added for the 2009 voting year: Best Season. The award recognizes theatre companies who have produced shows of consistently high quality throughout the voting season (September 1 - August 31). Any company who registered at least three productions for Ovation Awards consideration during the season is eligible. As with most other Ovation categories, there will be five nominations and one recipient.

For this first Best Season Award, the nominees are: the Chance Theater, the Fountain Theatre, the Geffen Playhouse, the Rubicon Theatre Company, and the Troubadour Theatre Company. Founded in 1989, the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards are the only peer-judged theatre awards in Los Angeles. For the 2008-2009 voting season, there are a grand total of 186 nominations for 66 productions presented by 48 companies. 

To see the full list of nominees, click here.

Voters are L.A. theatre professionals who are chosen each season by the Ovation Awards Review Committee (through an application process). The list of nominees is determined by a tabulation of scores conducted by the entertainment accounting firm Green, Hasson & Janks, LLP. It was also announced that the awards ceremony, which has traditionally been held in November each year, will now happen in January, kicking off the Los Angeles awards season. The 2009 Ovation Awards ceremony will take place on Monday, January 11, 2010 at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, home of the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities. The curtain will go up at 7:30pm. More info on the ceremony can be found at www.LAStageBlog.com/ovation-awards.