2012 Tony Awards: Best Lighting Design for a Musical

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winner will be in orange.

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN FOR A MUSICAL

1. GHOST THE MUSICAL
Hugh Vanstone

2. ONCE
Natasha Katz

3.  FOLLIES
Natasha Katz

4. THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS
Christopher Akerlind 

Despite all the initial brouhaha about Ms. Parks’s Porgy and Bess, little of the this revival is actually memorable, the least of which being Christopher Akerlind’s one-toned lighting design (he also lit the equally forgettable End of the Rainbow). But hey, I guess as long as the actors can be seen, a design is award-worthy, eh?

Then again, sometimes drowning the performers in darkness can get you nominated too. Natasha Katz’s lighting for the appallingly messy revival of Follies was three-toned — dark, darker, and darkest — all but hiding the actors and Gregg Barnes’s gloriously bejeweled  (Tony-nominated) costumes. Believe it or not, there is a way to light those peskily translucent spirits without losing them in the shadows…

And once again, the British megamusical comes in for the win. One of the busiest production designs of the season, the sheer number of effects that Ghost the Musical packs into one show is a marvel. While clearly aided by all the fog and LED screens and illusions, Hugh Vanstone’s lighting complements his co-designer’s well, in a mutually beneficial relationship that cleverly pulls attention away when necessary (i.e. Hey! Where’d that body come from?!), and that grounds the living in solid tones and etherealizes the dearly departed in wispy shades and shadows.

But no one likes Ghost, so the Tony will likely go to Once for Natasha Katz’s much more subtle and evocative work that creates a an authentic and earthy atmosphere for the meet-cute.

2011 Tony Awards: Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winners will be in orange.

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL

1. The Scottsboro Boys

2. The Book of Mormon

3. Anything Goes

4. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Missing: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

For better or worse — mostly worse in this case — How to Succeed‘s lighting design is the most memorable. The most prolific of the nominees, Howell Binkley (Tony winner for Jersey Boys, with four other shows currently running on Broadway including Memphis and Baby, It’s You!), employed a legion of LED lights for a rapid-fire, relentlessly vibrant design. Sure, the pastel hues add to the pert ’60s game-show vibe, which is enhanced by the hexagonal set and easter-egg colored costumes, but Loesser and Burrow’s corporate satire is busy enough without this kind of lighting overload. (Instead, Justin Townsend’s wild assortment of chasers, blinder cues and striking sidelighting for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson should have been recognized here.)

Tony-winning designer of Contact and The Producers, as well as the current Born Yesterday, Peter Kaczoroswski crafted a design for Anything Goes that is also colorful, but in more tasteful way, subtly supporting the passable revival production.

The Scottsboro Boys, originally designed at the Vineyard Theatre by Kevin Adams (Tony winner for American Idiot, The 39 Steps, Spring Awakening), was lit by Ken Billington (Sweeney Todd, Chicago) for the Broadway transfer. Reinforced by Beowulf Borritt’s sleek, spare set, the lighting fluently shifts from colder, restrained tones during “serious” scenes of dialogue between the accused boys, to exaggeratedly theatrical looks for the minstrel portions with crisp spotlights and washes of vibrant colors. The design isn’t exactly subtle  – but neither is minstrelsy — and the obvious switches in tone are well-conceived.

The most accomplished of the bunch, Brian MacDevitt’s contributions this season include House of Blue Leaves and Women on the Verge, and he’s won Tonys for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (a warm, gorgeous design), Pillowman, Coast of Utopia and Into the Woods. Packed with clever details, The Book of Mormon includes some excessive mirrorball effects to accentuate Elder Price’s “epiphanies” and hilariously-timed blackouts in a tap number about repressed Mormons (“Turn It Off”). Much like the show itself, the lighting is playful and pointed without ever being too over-the-top, so if anyone’s to beat Billington, it’ll be MacDevitt for his witty work.

2011 Tony Awards: Best Lighting Design of a Play

Note: My personal rankings are listed in order from best to worst, with #1 being my favorite, while predictions for the actual winners will be in orange.

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY

1. War Horse

2. Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

3. The Merchant of Venice

4. Jerusalem

There are really only two contenders here: War Horse and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

So let’s start with the other two nominees, shall we.

A realistic design for a realistic play, Mimi Jordan’s competent lighting for Jerusalem slid into the race by necessity for a fourth nominee (try to think of another superlative lighting design for a play. Go ahead — I’ll wait). I confess that I only saw The Merchant of Venice in the park, which location inherently requires a very specific set of lighting needs, but many a youtube video exists of the Broadway incarnation — see here, for example. With a much smaller playing space, and without the warm glow of the setting sun, Kenneth Posner (The Coast of Utopia, Wicked) takes a cue from Mark Wendland’s stark set; employing darker hues, he creates a somber, brooding tone for the Bard’s so-called comedy. The busiest of our nominees, Posner designed four other shows this season, including the dismal Catch Me If You Can.

Super-interestingly, the top two nominees were each charged with creating atmospheres of war, as centered around a titular non-human character. David Lander  (33 Variations, Cabaret) has already won the Drama Desk for his ability to  swiftly shift moods from light to dark and create a nightmarish atmosphere in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Maintaining an unsettling eeriness throughout with his spectral, moody lighting, Lander provides a constant reminder that Baghdad is “lousy with ghosts,” as the titular jungle cat declares at the start of the play.

Where Lander’s lighting produces an unsettling loneliness, Paule Constable’s maintains a warm, haunting glow as it follows a boy and his horse as they desperately search for each other over years and continents during WWI. Like Lander, Constable (Coram Boy, The Weir) has won a Drama Desk for his lighting design — the entire War Horse creative team was honored with a special Drama Desk Award for “Thrilling Stagecraft,” demonstrating the show’s peerless overall design. Because the Tony committee has shown so little love for Bengal (no Best Play nomination here) and so much for War Horse, it’s unlikely voters will bestow this prize on the all-but-forgotten — though still running! — Iraq ghost story. At this point, it’s pretty much a given that War Horse will sweep the design categories — and deservedly so.

Tony Awards 2010: Best Revival

BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY

1. A View from the Bridge

2. Fences

3. Lend Me a Tenor

The Royal Family

The winner of this category is obvious (to this reviewer at any rate), but many will vote for the still-running, star-studded Fences.  Kenny Leon‘s (Best Direction nominee) production, while wonderful in so many ways, is flawed and id not the cohesive masterpiece that many claim it to be. There is the misstep in sound design (Best Sound Design nominee) that slows the pace and confuses the tone. But the real error involves the charismatic Denzel Washington (Best Leading Actor nominee): instead of tempering Troy Mason’s bravura with equal parts fear and rage, director Kenny Leons allows Washington to highlight the endearingly brash showman within Troy, causing the final significant scenes to peter off anti-climatically. But if Washington isn’t the revelation that everyone wants him to be, no matter: for that we have Viola Davis (Best Leading Actress Nominee), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Best Featured Actor nominee), and rest of the fantastic supporting cast, who each master their own moments of heartbreak, creating an affective, if not innovative, production.

Total Nominations: 10

Lend Me a Tenor is hit and miss, but mostly it misses. The hits: Jan Maxwell‘s (Best Featured Actress nominee) hilariously tempestuous Italian wife; Tony Shalhoub as the desperate, no-nonsense opera GM; Anthony Lapaglia’s dopey Italian tenor; the fantastically frantic and fun curtain call wherein the cast reenacts the entire show in two hilarious minutes… and the blackface?  Yep, the blackface is a definite highlight. The misses: Jay Klaitz’s obnoxious singing bellhop,  the miscast Brooke Adams as the pointless Chairman of the Opera Guild; Justin Bartha’s “singing”; and much of Ken Ludwig’s script which is not so funny as it is silly. For the most part, director Stanley Tucci does what he can to keep the production moving (lots of running in and out of and slamming of doors; constant flinging onto sofas and beds and chairs; repeated spitting of indiscernible items into the audience), but this farcical production simply isn’t as good as the company it keeps in this category.

Total Nominations: 3

How does Ken Ludwig even survive in a category that includes Arthur Miller? And a damn fine production of an Arthur Miller work at that. Director Gregory Mosher (nominee) takes a quiet approach to the tragic A View from the Bridge, carefully keeping in check emotions that could easily become high-pitched and overwrought (there is, after all, a Greek chorus present). The tone is low but warm, both visually and aurally (Best Sound Design nominee), letting the melancholy design reflect the quiet anguish simmering beneath the surface, and allowing the familial tension to gradually imbue the entire production. If there was a “Best Ensemble Cast” award it would certainly go to Liev Schrieber, Jessica Hecht, Scarlett Johansson (all nominated), and the rest of the superb supporting cast. Mosher’s A View from the Bridge comes to a slow boil, and when tragedy finally fells the Carbone family, you feel your very bones ache along with them in despair, making this View a masterful production of a master’s work.

Total Nominations: 6

The Royal Family (unseen)
Total Nominations: 5

BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL

1. A Little Night music

2. La Cage aux Folles

3. Finian’s Rainbow

4. Ragtime

With a whopping eleven nominations, La Cage aux Folles‘s win here is pretty much guaranteed. The performances by both Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge (Best Leading Actor nominees) have been widely praised, the costumes are absolutely fabulous (Best Costume nominee), the lighting is sexy and smart (Best Lighting nominee), choreography is cheeky and clever (Best Choreography nominee), and Terry Johnson (Best Direction nominee) smartly doesn’t get in the way of the inherent hilarity and endearing cast of characters; he simply allows those fabulous Cagelles to be What They Are, and What They Are in is a finely tuned production.

Total Nominations: 11

Tony voters’ runner- up would be my top pick. A Little Night Music is by far the most accomplished musical revived this year, and while Director Trevor Nunn’s production isn’t innovative, it’s tight and cohesive, both in direction and design (Best Sound Design nominee). The cast creates a terrific ensemble, including the always brilliant  and saucy Angela Lansbury (Best Featured Actress nominee), though decidedly excluding the shrill Ramona Mallory as the virginal Anne. All in all, a fine production of a fine musical.

Total Nominations: 4

The remaining two nominees each closed early after brief runs to mixed reviews, and so practically bow out of the running altogether. Ragtime was a mess of misguided minimalism (thanks to Best Direction nominee, Marcia Milgrom Dodge),  and Finian’s Rainbow should probably just be thankful it made it to Broadway in the first place (what an odd — and oddly delightful — obscure little musical).

Ragtime‘s Total Nominations: 6

Finian‘s Total Nominations: 3

Tony Awards 2010: Lighting Design

Inspired lighting design can entirely transform the tone and meaning of a production, and when it’s done exceptionally well it’s just plain orgasmic — at least for this gal. Luckily for me, my favorite LD made a fantastic double-showing this season.

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY

1. Hamlet (Neil Austin)/ Red (Neil Austin)

2. Enron (Mark Henderson)

3. Fences (Brian MacDevitt)

Neil Austin’s lighting designs are brilliantly consistent in their insight and beauty, but his work on Hamlet, the Jude Law vehicle imported from London, is especially striking. While the more than competent Law tended to over-think his character’s moral and mental dilemmas, Austin smartly illuminated the young prince’s loneliness, coolly isolating him with tunnels of white light. For Red, Austin ushered audiences into the dark, swirling mind of Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko, surrounding the painter and his protegee in dark shadows and warm hues both disturbing and strangely comforting. Noteworthy is the fact that Austin was aided by the same creative team for both shows: the strikingly simple work of set and costume designer, Christopher Oram (Best Scenic Design nominee, Red), strong direction of Michael Grandage (Best Direction nominee, Red) and sound design of Adam Cork (Best Sound Design nominee for Red and Enron). (Notably, Austin and Oram both designed the 2007 London production of the musical Parade. Check out all all of Austin’s work here). This creative team consistently produces some of the most exquisitely intelligent and cohesive work in theatre today, and for the most part, New York audiences and critics alike seem to welcome this particular British team with open arms (the same cannot be said for team behind Enron). While both of Austin’s Broadway showings this season are equally deserving, Red is the critical darling, and so will more than likely take the Tony.

As for the other two nominees: Henderson’s hard-working design is befitting of Enron‘s delightfully over-the-top aesthetic with its flashing neons, red-hued warnings, and accusatory pools of white light. On the other hand, MacDevitt‘s work on Fences is of the more practical variety, quietly working throughout most of the production, but once or twice devolving into obviousness (Troy Mason’s monologue against death prompted a swift darkening of all but Washington’s form).

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL

1.  La Cage aux Folles (Nick Richings)

2. American Idiot (Kevin Adams)

3. Ragtime (Donald Holder)

4. Fela! (Robert Wierzel)

The nominees here are not quite as thrilling as those for the Best Lighting Design of a Play. None dramatically stood out from the rest, so this is a loose ordering that in my mind could easily be switched around. Because of this, I’ve chosen the subtlest of the bunch, as well as the most clever and unobtrusive. Where American Idiot‘s ’90s grunge translates to the dim, smoky lighting, and Fela!‘s rainbowed gels rival the vibrance of the loudly-patterned African-styled costumes, both designs became distracting, constantly altering between  flashing colors, dark shadows, and endless follow spots.  Adams and Wierzel’s designs appear more suited for Green Day and Fela Kuti concerts than for the stories being told (admittedly the books of both shows are muddled, if not practically non-existent). Holder’s rich use of shadow and light more practically highlighted those same characteristics in the complex history being told in Ragtime, but for my money, Richings most aptly straddled the line between practicality and artistry in La Cage aux Folles, infusing tongue-in-cheek humor and buoyancy into what could have been a static and predictable cabaret lighting of one spotlight after another.