The Last Straw Awards 2013 – Part II - Writers, Directors, & Cast

By Joe Straw 

Sometimes you have to wonder how theatre gets done in this town – how everything comes together, the play, the venue, the actors, the scheduling, for the night when all the lights are lowered and that first entrance is made.

Theatre is done with creative beasts doing the heavy emotional lifting, toiling wearily, committed to the cause, and not stopping until the job is done.  And we sit and watch with malicious enjoyment as the indefinably audacious performers scuttle from one conflict to the next.

It is to these fine shows that I give the Last Straw Award 2013 to the Writers, Directors, and Cast for putting it all out there and giving their audience the emotional sustenance they need to continue on.

I witnessed a number of exceptional plays; impressive panoply of exceptional theatre in 2013, but the ones below left a mark on my creative being.   

The North Plan by Jason Wells

Director – David Fofi

Producer – Lindsay Allbaugh

Actors

Kerry Carney

Bernadette Speakes

Stan Roth

Chris Game

Salvator Xuereb

John Forest

Peter Pan the Boy Who Hated Mothers by Michael Lluberes

Director - Michael Matthews

Producers – Sarah A. Bauer, Matthew Graber, Daniel Henning, Stephen Moffatt and Noah Wyle

Actors

Liz Burns

Daniel Shawn Miller

Trisha LaFache

Benjamin Campbell

Jackson Evans

David Hemphill

Amy Lawhorn

Rodeo Town by Graham Bowlin

Director – Cameron Strittmatter

Producer – Bellwether Brothers Theatre Works

Actors

Harry Beer

Dustin Bayers

Eric Cire

Dustin Gooch

The End of It by Paul Coates

Director – Nick Degruccio

Producer – End LA & Scott Disharoon

Actors

Paul Coates

William Franklin Barker

Wendy Radford

Kelly Coffield Park

David Youse

the road weeps, the well runs dry by Marcus Gardley

Director:  Shirley Jo Finney

Produced by José Lus Valenzuela and General Manager Paul Stuart Graham

Actors

Darrell Dennis

Elizabeth Frances

Demetrius Grosse

Matthew Hancock

Brent Jennings

Monnac Michaell

Simone Missick

Darryl Alan Reed

Montae Russell

Nakia Secrest

Shaun Taylor Corbett

The "Ortiz" award for outstanding theatrical achievement this years goes to "the road weeps, the well runs dry" by Marcus Gardley. 

This award represents a grand achievement for diversity in a theatrical production.  It is something I worked for as the SAG Hollywood President of the EEOC and continues today through this blog.