From the Ledge

The Jeff Awards, which is the Chicago equivalent of the Tony awards, honoring the best in Chicago theater, just came out last night with their nominations for the Non-Equity (formerly Citations) wing.  I’d like to give a big shout-out and hip, hip, hooray to my dear friend Jonathan Verge, who was part of the ensemble of the Bailiwick production of A Man of No Importance, nominated for Best Production (Musical), as well as for other major categories such as Best Director (Musical) and Best Actor (Musical).  Jonathan, way to go!  I was also very excited to see some of my favorite productions and performances get nominations: Bailiwick’s Jerry Springer, the Opera, which was one of my top cultural and artistic experiences of 2007, snagged 6 nominations, including Best Production (Musical) and Best Supporting Actor (Musical) for Jeremy Rill’s show stopping star turn as the Devil; Hans Fleischmann got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor (Play) for his riveting turn as the deceptive brother in Profiles’ In a Dark, Dark, House; and Bethany Thomas was cited for her magnificent performance in Bohemian Theater Ensemble’s The Life, where she blew the amazed audience out of the theater and deposited them north of Southport in her memorable rendition of the song “The Oldest Profession”.  Of course, as it is with me and the Jeffs every time the nominations come out, I am baffled by what was NOT nominated:  where was Sean Graney’s direction of the maddening, divisive, but ultimately mind-expanding Hypocrites’ production of Miss Julie, staged as a walkaround? Where were the direction and performances (especially Kevin Cox’s) of the fresh, exuberant, youthful, and very sexy version of Moliere’s The Misanthrope from GreasyJoan & Co.?  Where were Paul Meyers’ chilling, over-the-top, totally out-of-control performance and Grant Sabin’s meticulously dingy set design for the Side Project’s production of Adam Rapp’s Faster?  All of these shows were Jeff-recommended but didn’t make the cut for the nominations.  Let’s not even talk about what didn’t get Jeff-recommended and therefore were ineligible for nominations (anything from TUTA or Marisa Wergyzyn’s hilarious and very original Killing Women, anyone?).  Oh well… Congratulations to all the nominees – check them all out at www.jeffawards.org.