NEWS RELEASE — 2015 LA STAGE ALLIANCE OVATION AWARD WINNERS

2015 LA STAGE ALLIANCE OVATION AWARDS
PRESENTED MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9
AT THE AHMANSON THEATRE

The 2015 LA STAGE Alliance Ovation Awards, celebrating theatrical excellence and achievement during the past 12 months, were presented on Monday, November 9 at the Ahmanson Theatre at The Music Center.

Thirty-five awards were bestowed upon 18 different Southern California theatre companies. The most honored companies of the year were The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts/Deaf West Theatre/Cody Lassen (Spring Awakening); Center Theatre Group (Chavez Ravine: An L.A. Revival, The Price, Luna Gale); Circle X Theatre Company (Trevor); Ebony Repertory Company (The Gospel at Colonus); Sacred Fools Theater Company (The Behavior of Broadus, a co-production with Burglars of Hamm and Center Theatre Group); Four Larks (The Temptation of St Antony); and Loft Ensemble (She Kills Monsters).

Other companies honored were 3-D Theatricals, Actors Co-op, Cabrillo Music Theatre, Coeurage Theatre Company, Los Angeles Performance Practice, The Pasadena Playhouse, Rogue Machine, Unbound Productions, and VS. Theatre Company. The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts received the Best Season Award (Enter Laughing, Love, Noël: The Letters and Songs of Noël Coward, Spring Awakening).

For a complete list of winners, go to @ This Stage Magazine (ThisStage.LA).

LA STAGE Alliance Board Chair Brian Kite said, “What a night! It is always a thrill to gather the Los Angeles theatre community together to honor excellence. The work on our stages this year was invigorating, riveting, thought provoking, and daring. Congratulations to all the artists that keep LA theatre among the best in the world. Bravo!”

Sarah Lyding, Senior Program Officer for The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation, presented the BEST Awards, including checks totaling $105,000 to the following LA theatre companies: Casa 0101 (also won in 2012), Center Theatre Group, East West Players (also won in 2013 and 2014), The Pasadena Playhouse, and Watts Village Theater Company.

Additionally, Center Theatre Group presented the 2015 Sherwood Award for innovative and adventurous artists to Miwa Matreyek. This award is endowed by the Sherwood family and is accompanied by $10,000 to further Matreyek’s artistic work.

The ceremony was hosted by French and Vanessa Claire Stewart, and this year’s presenters included LA theatre luminaries (in alphabetical order) Keith Allan, Bekah Brunsetter, Lap Chi Chu, Guillermo Cienfuegos, Tim Dang, Abigail Deser, Robert Egan, Christina Elmore, Ann Closs Farley, Shirley Jo Finney, Brighid Fleming, David and Kiki Gindler, Harry Groener, Sofia Klatzker, Michael Kricfalusi, Deborah Lawler, Alan Mandell, Terence McFarland, Stephen Sachs, Oz Scott, Madhuri Shekar, Trent Steelman, Seema Sueko, Jose Luis Valenzuela, and Kirsten Vangsness.

Founded in 1989, the LA STAGE Alliance Ovation Awards are the only peer-judged theatre awards in Los Angeles. Voters are Los Angeles theatre professionals who are chosen each year, through an application process, by the Ovation Rules Committee. The list of nominees is determined by a tabulation of scores conducted by Green Hasson Janks. This year’s Ovation Award eligibility period ran from September 1, 2014 through August 31, 2015.

Since 1975, LA STAGE Alliance has dedicated to building awareness, appreciation, and support for the performing arts in Greater Los Angeles. All of its initiatives aim to serve and strengthen the sector — both at an individual and community level — providing resources that facilitate audience engagement, collaborative marketing, community building, and professional development.

Sponsors for this year’s Ovation Awards ceremony were The Sheri & Les Biller Family Foundation, TheaterMania, Goldstar, Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Entertainment, USC School of Dramatic Arts, UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television, Green Hasson Janks, Bakers Man Productions, Performances Magazine, City Tavern, Peter Konerko Photography, and Ken Werther Publicity. Variety was the media sponsor.

For more information, visit lastagealliance.com.

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11-09-15

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS

NEWS RELEASE — STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS NAMED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT LA STAGE ALLIANCE

LA STAGE ALLIANCE ANNOUNCES
STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS
AS NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

THE LASA BOARD LOOKS TO NEW LEADERSHIP
TO CONTINUE THE WORK OF THE 40-YEAR-OLD
ARTS SERVICE ORGANIZATION

Steven Leigh Morris has been named Executive Director of LA STAGE Alliance, it was announced today by Brian Kite, LASA Board Chair. Morris succeeds longtime leader Terence McFarland, who left the post in April of this year. Morris’s start date with the not-for-profit arts service organization will be announced shortly.

“Steven Leigh Morris is an incredible presence in Los Angeles theatre,” said LASA Board Chair Brian Kite. “As a community, he has praised us when our work soared and looked us in the eye when we missed the mark — he is a true leader. It is my honor to introduce such a talented, inspiring, and creative force as the new leader of LA STAGE Alliance.”

Said Morris, “I’m grateful and honored by the trust LASA has placed in me and I feel privileged to be working with this fine organization to serve such a smart and impassioned community. The key word in LASA’s name is “alliance,” and that’s what I hope to accentuate in this new role — how can we work together to forge the kinds of alliances that can help give the LA theatre community the traction, recognition and audiences it needs and deserves?”

Steven Leigh Morris is the founding editor of the community-funded digital arts venture Stage Raw (www.stageraw.com). Morris chaired the Jury for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012 and served on that Jury in 2011. For his writings in the LA Weekly he received the Critic of the Year prize from the National Entertainment Journalism Awards in 2011. His play Moskva, adapted from Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita was produced by City Garage in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station last year. His play Beachwood Drive was presented off-Broadway and was subsequently published by both Samuel French and Smith & Kraus (in its Best New American Playwrights of 2009 anthology). His farce about the press, Red Ink, has been in development at the New York Theatre Workshop, The Yale Cabaret Hollywood, and Echo Theater Company. Morris has been the lead theatre critic at the LA Weekly for 15 years. His theatre features have also been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, American Theatre Magazine, Back Stage, World’s Fair Magazine in San Francisco, and DRAMA Magazine in London. From 2006 to 2011 Morris served on the faculty of the NEA/Annenberg School of Journalism Institute for Criticism in Theatre and Musical Theatre. He has been an adjunct professor of theatre at the University of Southern California, and currently serves as adjunct professor of theatre at California State University San Bernardino and Dominguez Hills. Morris’s first novel, Fowl Play, combining his dual passions for theatre and barnyard poultry, will be published by Padaro Press and Open Road Media in the spring of 2016.

Since 1975, LA STAGE Alliance has dedicated to building awareness, appreciation, and support for the performing arts in Greater Los Angeles. All of its initiatives aim to serve and strengthen the sector — both at an individual and community level — providing resources that facilitate audience engagement, collaborative marketing, community building, and professional development.

For more information, visit lastagealliance.com.

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11-03-15

Photo by Ron Bird Photography.