For Utah theatergoers, there were probably far more "bests" than "worsts" during 2005.
BEST PROFESSIONAL/EQUITY PRODUCTIONS: "Stones in His Pockets," "Love's Labour's Lost," "Camelot," "The Foreigner" and "Pippin" (Utah Shakespearean Festival); "Metamorphoses," "James Joyce's The Dead" and "Sherlock Holmes & the West End Horror" (Pioneer Theatre Company); "Dust Eaters" and "Swimming in the Shallows" (Salt Lake Acting Company), "Talking Wales" (Utah Contemporary Theatre) and "Wicked City Blues" (Utah Musical Theatre).
BEST LOCAL SEMIPROFESSIONAL PRODUCTIONS: "Ragtime," "The Slipper and the Rose" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Hale Centre Theatre), "Godspell" (Grand
Theatre), "Harvey," "Civil War" and "Nunsense Jamboree" (Rodgers Memorial Theatre), and "Seussical" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" (Egyptian Theatre Company).
BEST COLLEGIATE PRODUCTIONS: "Assassins," "Iphigenia at Aulis" and "Angels in America, Part 1" (Babcock); "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Laramie Project" (Westminster College), and "Rumors" (Salt Lake Community College).
BEST PERFORMANCES (MALE): Brian Vaughn and David Ivers (Utah Shakespearean Festival); Ron Frederickson ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), Chris Mixon and Lloyd Mulvey ("The Foreigner"), John Williams ("Harvey"), Aaron DeJesus and Kenneth Wayne ("Seussical," plus the latter in "La Cage Aux Folles"), David Evanoff ("Song of Singapore"), David Weekes ("To Kill a Mockingbird") and Marvin Payne ("Man of La Mancha").
BEST PERFORMANCES (FEMALE): Meghan Parrish ("Ragtime"), Joyce Cohen ("Dust Eaters"), Arika Schockmel ("Dirty Blonde"), Camille Van Wagoner ("Song of Singapore"), Reb Fleming ("Cakewalk"), Colleen Lewis ("Patient A").
BEST ENSEMBLES: The casts of PTC's "Metamorphoses" and "Sherlock Holmes & the West End Horror," Babcock's "Assassins" and the Grand's "Godspell," with many performers playing multiple roles.
BEST DIRECTORS: Larry West ("Angels in America" and "Iphigenia at Aulis"), Michael Vought ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), Charles Morey ("Metamorphoses"), Ron Jewett ("Ragtime"), Sarah Shippobotham ("Assassins) and Anne Stewart Mark ("Godspell").
BEST TOURING SHOWS: "Little Women," "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Peter Pan," Hal Holbrook's "Mark Twain Tonight" and "Late Nite Catechism."
BEST REVIVALS: "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (Plan-B Theatre Company), "Beauty and the Beast" (Pioneer Theatre Company) and "Mamma Mia!" (national touring company).
WORST PRODUCTIONS: "The Magic of Love," a touring magic show that couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be; SLAC's "Saturday's Voyeur," a misfire that never quite hit the mark; "Cricket on the Hearth" (This Is the Place Heritage Park), which turned out to be more tedious than charming; and "The Other Wise Man" (Rodgers Memorial Theatre), which could not overcome the limitations of a terrible script.
RECORD-BREAKER: One of Desert Star Theater's best comedies, "My Big Fat Utah Wedding," became Utah's longest continually running show, finally closing on Nov. 19 after 74 weeks. Desert Star added a second venue, just to accommodate the crowds.
TRANSITIONS: Fred C. Adams, founder of the Utah Shakespearean Festival, changed roles on Dec. 16, adding "emeritus" to his previous post as executive producer and taking on the role of executive director of the Festival Centre Project. R. Scott Phillips, who has been with the festival for 29 years, is interim executive producer.
Salt Lake Acting Company changed leadership at the start of its 2005-06 season, with David Kirk Chambers tapped as managing director and Keven Myhre as producing director, replacing former executive producers Nancy Borgenicht and Allen Nevins, who will focus on writing "Saturday's Voyeur," the company's annual fund-raising satire.
James Prigmore retired as Pioneer Theatre Company's musical director, a post now filled by former rehearsal accompanist and assistant director Mearle Marsh.
Making their final exits during the year were Syd Riggs, one of Utah County's busiest stage directors, who died in June from complications following surgery for a broken foot. Katharine Clark Reilly, founder of the Emily Company, died in October in a Bend, Ore., hospice of ovarian cancer — a tragic twist of fate, considering she played a woman dying from ovarian cancer in "Wit" in 2000.
UTAH COUNTY
BEST PRODUCTIONS: "Beauty and the Beast," "Enchanted April" and "See How They Run" (Hale Center Theater Orem); "Big River" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Provo Theatre Company); "The Wizard of Oz," "Aida," "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "Honk!" (SCERA Center); "Holes" and "The Music Man" (Brigham Young University); "A Marrying Man" and "Leader of the Pack" (Utah Valley State College); and "The Three Little Pigs" and "The Wild Things" (Alpine Playhouse).
WORST PRODUCTIONS: "Funny Cinderella" (Alpine Playhouse) and "South Pacific" (Center Street Musical Theatre) — the latter done in by an ill-prepared orchestra and (on opening night) a stage mother videotaping her daughter's performance.
Staff writers Susan Whitney, Sharon Haddock and Genelle Pugmire contributed to this article.
E-mail: ivan@desnews.com