2006 Winner - Best Production Gaslight Theatre Company (PA) "Moon for the Misbegotten "

Festival 2006

A Finger Lakes Celebration of Award-Winning Community Theatre

hosted by:
Smith Opera House
sponsored by:
Geneva Theatre Guild
Smith Opera House
Finger Lakes Arts Grants and Services
Theatre Association of New York State
April 21, 22, and 23, 2006
Smith Opera House
82 Seneca Street
Geneva, NY 14456

Smith Opera House Geneva, NY

The Gaslight Theatre Company, Wilkes-Barre, PA, took top honors at the recent Eastern States Theatre Association Festival at the Smith Opera House, Geneva. The one act play competition was held April 21, 22, 23.

Competing with Act III of Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten , the group won best production, excellence in directing for Sean J. McKeown and excellence in acting for Christa Manning and Jack Evans. Gaslight had previously received the same honors at the Pennsylvania Association of Community Theatres Festival, earlier in April.

Honorable mention acting awards went to Maura Stadem and Ted Schneider in Perfectly Good Airplanes, Silver Spring Stage, MD.; and David H. Jones, The Way to Miami, The Montgomery Playhouse, Gaithersburg, MD. Jeremy McLellan and Liz Convertino received honorable mention in acting awards for their work in the New York State entry, Twice Upon A Time, from the Philipstown Depot Theatre, Garrison.

The Blue Ridge Theatre Guild, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, was honored for overall production design and Festival preparation, for their show, Hopscotch .

ADJUDICATORS
Ward Dales holds a BFA in Acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He has performed, designed and directed for the theatre and cabaret stage in NYC and in Europe, but has called New York State's Capital Region his creative home nearly 15 years. He co-founded Actors' Collaborative Inc. (ACI), and served as its Co-Producing Artistic Director throughout its seven-year tenure as Resident Theatre Company both at the Egg and the Arts Center of the Capital Region. For ACI, He directed and acted in a number of productions at ACI. He has also worked on stage with the Capital Repertory Co., the New York State Theatre Institute (including their celebrated Time Warner video production of A Tale of Cinderella ), Albany Civic Theatre, Schenectady Civic Players, Schenectady Light Opera Company, and Three Dollar Bill Productions. He is a member in good standing of the Screen Actors Guild and Actors' Equity Association. Ward developed the drama portion of the performing arts program at Philip Livingston Magnet Academy in Albany, where he served as an instructor and Director of the Magnet School Programs for 11 years. As Volunteer Adjunct Professor through SUNY Albany's University in the High School Program, he is responsible for developing and teaching the Career Exploration in Communications and Performing Arts Program at Albany High School, and directs the after-school drama program.

Kevin Gardner is a veteran director and actor with extensive experience as a teacher, critic and festival adjudicator. He is a member of Actor's Equity Association and has appeared in many well-known New England theaters. He has directed more than seventy productions in professional and academic theaters, composed and recorded theatrical underscores and served as a performance evaluator for the arts councils of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. From 1984 to 1994, he served as on-air theatre critic for New Hampshire Public Radio. He is now NHPR's Humanities Producer and an award-winning journalist whose features on arts, history and culture have aired on the Christian Science Monitor broadcast network and on National Public Radio. His latest book, The Granite Kiss , is an examination of the traditions and techniques of building New England stone walls. Kevin is a member of the faculty of St. Paul's School's Advanced Studies Program, where he teaches the course "Shakespeare for Performance." He lives in Hopkinton, NH, with his wife, actress and teacher Brenda Foley.

Carol Youmans has been working and learning in community theatre since 1981. With ambition to direct and a pretty strong literary background, but almost no knowledge of theatrecraft, she set out to learn what she needed to know in order to do it. Learning by working, she painted, then designed, sets, crewed and learned how to design lights and sound, took workshops and acted ( The Octette Bridge Club and Antigone .) Finally in 1989, she realized her goal: directing a production at The Colonial Players of Annapolis. Close Ties was followed by many more shows, among them, Working, Social Security, Fences, Macbeth, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, As Bees In Honey Drown , and A Comedy of Errors at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre, where she also co-directed Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . Carol is a passionate advocate of theatre's power to teach as well as entertain and has worked in many Colonial Players board positions over the years, including President, to promote it. She is currently directing Sweet Chariot by Margaret Barton Driggs, a one-woman play based on the life of Harriet Tubman, for the Kunte Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation in Annapolis.

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION
Gaslight Theatre Company(PA)
"A Moon for the Misbegotten "

EXCELLENCE IN DIRECTING
Sean J. McKeown, Gaslight Theatre Company(PA),   "A Moon for the Misbegotten"

EXCELLENCE IN ACTING
Jack Evans, Gaslight Theatre Company(PA),   "A Moon for the Misbegotten"
Christa Manning, Gaslight Theatre Company(PA),   "A Moon for the Misbegotten"

HONORABLE MENTION IN ACTING
Maura Stadem, Silver Spring Stage (MD), "Perfectly Good Airplanes
Ted Schneider, Silver Spring Stage (MD), "Perfectly Good Airplanes
David Jones, The Montgomery Playhouse (MD), "The Way to Miami" 
Liz Kiefer, Philipstown Depot Theatre (NY), "Twice Upon a Time" 
Jeremy McLellan, Philipstown Depot Theatre (NY), "Twice Upon a Time"