Theater Critics' Picks

Dallas-Fort Worth theater critics declare standouts from 2014-15 season

The members of the Dallas-Fort Worth Critics Forum gathered on September 12 to nominate and debate their picks for the most outstanding performances, productions, designs, and new plays of the past season.

Eleven critics duked it out (myself and Jan Farrington of TheaterJones.com were absent due to prior commitments, but sent our lists in early) before finally deciding on the winners. There are several for each category — rather than only one — that are listed alphabetically, and this year for the first time we demolished the gender separation in best performance. Shows that opened between September 1, 2014 and August 31, 2015 were eligible.

This list is the consensus of the group. There are several honorees that I did not vote for, and several more I submitted that did not garner enough votes to make it to the final round. Look for my own list of this year's best as we close out 2015.

Without further ado, these are the critics’ picks for 2014-15:

Outstanding Direction:

Akín Babatundé, Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope and The Color Purple, Jubilee Theatre
Bruce R. Coleman, The Nance, Uptown Players
Cheryl Denson, Catch Me If You Can, Uptown Players
Jeremy Dumont, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Uptown Players
Blake Hackler, The Flick, Undermain Theatre
Katherine Owens, Tomorrow Come Today and The Testament of Mary, Undermain Theatre
Matthew Posey, The Egg Salesman, The Ochre House
vickie washington, Mississippi Goddamn, South Dallas Cultural Center

Outstanding New Play/Musical:

Mississippi Goddamn by Jonathan Norton, South Dallas Cultural Center
The Show About Men by Danielle Georgiou, Justin Locklear and Trey Pendergrass, DGDG, Festival of Independent Theatres
Standing Eight Count by Van Quattro, Rite of Passage Theatre Company, Out of the Loop Fringe Festival and Dallas Solo Fest

Outstanding Acting Performance:

Stephanie Cleghorn Jasso, Lydia, Cara Mía Theatre Company
B.J. Cleveland, The Nance, Uptown Players
David Coffee, King Lear, Trinity Shakespeare Festival
Hassan El-Amin, Radio Golf and A Soldier's Play, African American Repertory Theater
Anthony Fortino, Catch Me If You Can, Uptown Players
Kyle Igneczi, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Uptown Players
Shannon Kearns, The Testament of Mary, Undermain Theatre
Jenny Ledel for:
- The Arsonists, Kitchen Dog Theater
- Belleville, Second Thought Theatre
- Othello, Second Thought Theatre
- Wilde/Earnest, Kitchen Dog Theater
David Lugo, Catch Me If You Can, Uptown Players
Janelle Lutz, Lady in the Dark and South Pacific, Lyric Stage
Ebony Marshall Oliver, In Real Life and The Color Purple, Jubilee Theatre
Sally Nystuen Vahle, Medea, Dallas Theater Center
Allison Pistorius, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, Stage West
Paul Taylor, Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, Stage West; and The Hot Mikado, Theatre Three
Lulu Ward, The Two-Character Play, WingSpan Theatre Company
Sherry Jo Ward, Precious Little, Echo Theatre
Pat Watson, Streamers, L.I.P. Service

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble:

The Brothers Size, Jubilee Theatre
The Egg Salesman, The Ochre House
The Flick, Undermain Theatre
Hands on a Hardbody, Theatre Three
Mississippi Goddamn, South Dallas Cultural Center
Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, Stage West
The Nance, Uptown Players

Outstanding Achievement in Design or Creative Contribution:

Robin Armstrong, fight choreography, Lovers and Executioners, Circle Theatre
Clare Floyd DeVries, set design, The Explorers Club, Stage West and WaterTower Theatre
Danielle Georgiou, choreography, NICE and The Show About Men, DGDG
Bob Lavallee, set design, The Rocky Horror Show, Dallas Theater Center
Joshua L. Peugh, choreography/movement, Colossal, Dallas Theater Center
Adam C. Wright, original composition, The Nance, Uptown Players

Outstanding touring production:

Buyer & Cellar, AT&T Performing Arts Center
Endurance, Split Knuckle Theatre, The Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts
The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, The Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts
Once, AT&T Performing Arts Center and Performing Arts Fort Worth
Pippin, Dallas Summer Musicals and Performing Arts Fort Worth

Special Citations:

To Lyric Stage and musical director Jay Dias for their contributions to the musical restoration of The Golden Apple and Lady in the Dark, and for the first cast recording of the complete score of The Golden Apple.
To Audacity Theatre Lab and Brad McEntire for bringing quality local and national performances to the second annual Dallas Solo Fest at the Margo Jones Theatre, and for advancing the art of solo performance in North Texas.
To the producers of Shakespeare in the Bar for attracting new and large audiences to non-traditional spaces and reminding us that Shakespeare can be unexpected and fun.

Participating Critics:

Lindsey Wilson, CultureMap Dallas
Alexandra Bonifield, CriticalRant.com
Nancy Churnin, The Dallas Morning News
Jan Farrington, TheaterJones.com
Martha Heimberg, The Dallas Weekly and TheaterJones.com
Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallas Voice
Elaine Liner, The Dallas Observer
Mark Lowry, TheaterJones.com and Fort Worth Star-Telegram
David Novinski, TheaterJones.com
Punch Shaw, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Lauren Smart, The Dallas Observer

Kyle Igneczi was rewarded for his star-making turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Uptown Players, directed by winner Jeremy Dumont.

Photo by Mike Morgan

Kyle Igneczi was rewarded for his star-making turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Uptown Players, directed by winner Jeremy Dumont.

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A good listen

Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi release landmark Wagner 'Ring Cycle' set

Fabio Luisi conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Photo courtesy of Dallas Symphony Orchestra

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Fabio Luisi wanted his Ring Cycle to be heard and not seen.

Wagner’s four-opera epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, approaching the 150th anniversary of its premiere in 1876, has been reinterpreted and deconstructed by directors finding various meanings in the conflicts among gods, humans, giants and dwarfs.

While most new recordings are on video, Luisi led his Dallas Symphony Orchestra in concert performances that were released on 13 compact discs by Delos on May 22 and are available on streaming services.

“Wagner conceived this as a total immersion in visual and acoustic, but I could focus really only on the music, and this was the point actually — not to be distracted by staging and not to have to cope with maybe strange ideas of staging,” Luisi said. “I think the music tells everything.”

Luisi became DSO music director in 2020 and broached the idea while dining two years later with (the now late) Morton H. Meyerson, a longtime board member.

“Fabio came back from lunch sort of giddy but sort of sheepishly saying: `Do you think that this would ever be possible?” recalled Kim Noltemy, the Dallas CEO at the time. “So, I said, well, let’s give it a try. So, we called around to see if there were people who wanted to support it and did a budget.”

After securing a waiver from the orchestra allowing for the needed rehearsals and performance length, recordings were made during four concerts from May 1-5 and six more from Oct. 5-20. Each opera was performed two or three times.

Americans in cast fill big roles
American singers featured prominently, with Mark Delavan as Wotan, Lise Lindstrom as Brünnhilde and Sara Jakubiak as Sieglinde, part of a cast that included Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Daniel Johansson (Siegfried), Deniz Uzun (Fricka), Tómas Tómasson (Alberich), Michael Laurenz (Mime) and Stephen Milling (Hagen).

Delavan sang Wotan at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2013 after Luisi took over from an ailing James Levine in Robert Lepage’s much-maligned production staged on a 45-ton set of 24 rotating planks.

“We’re accessible and they know that we’re hungry and we have a chip on our shoulders,” Delavan said. “What conductors like about American singers is their technique is sound. Even a European conductor would say: Well, I’m going to give up some of the communication skills, only one degree of separation with the language, but I’m going to get a solid technique, and I’m going to get pretty good acting chops.”

Lindstrom has been in Atlanta to sing in its production of “Götterdämmerung,” the concluding night of the tetralogy, leading to what is being billed as the first complete Ring Cycles in the America South in 2029.

“The wonderful thing about it is the intimacy between the orchestra and us, because we’re not separated by a chunk of stage or a chunk a scenery or a chunk of concept,” she said of the Dallas performances. “And for people like me, who have had the opportunity to perform the role before, I have all those iterations to rely on for my portrayal that I can sort of filter myself through.”

A younger Luisi listened to famous renditions
Luisi, 67, first heard a Ring recording in Georg Solti’s famous studio set with the Vienna Philharmonic from 1958-65. He also admires Karl Böhm’s live recording from the 1967 Bayreuth Festival and Marek Janowski’s 1980-83 studio version with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He first conducted Ring when he was music director of Dresden’s Semperoper from 2007-10. Luisi’s Dallas performances include more legato and softer sound than his rendition a decade earlier at the Met. He tries to keep an arc from the first notes of “Das Rheingold” to the final strains of “Götterdämmerung.”

“I have a deeper understanding about the meaning of this piece,” he said. “I consider the ring to be a big Bruckner symphony. So we have the introduction, then we have the first movement, this is “Walküre,” which happens to be a slow movement, and then we have the scherzo, which is “Siegfried,” of course, and then the long, long, last movement. There is a unity.”

dso luisi ring wagner recording concerts music symphony