2012 Rogue's Gallery, part 1

Sound Design

Dyan Bailey, Love Song, Planet Ant Theatre
•Quintessa Gallinat, Escanaba in da Moonlight, Purple Rose Theatre Co.
•Burr Huntington, Dead and Buried, Detroit Repertory Theatre
•Pete Jacokes, Mid-Life Christmas, Go Comedy! Improv Theater
•Will Myers, Dead Man's Shoes, Williamston Theatre/Performance Network Theatre

The depth of his Christmas-music library was impressive enough, but Jacokes wielded it perfectly in a montage of mind-blowing efficiency. Gallinat blended the folksy backdrop of a local fable with the tonal anachronism of an out-of-this-world tall tale. Huntington’s blaring spine-tingling reverberations expressly laid the spooky foundation of a veering, diffuse story of the macabre. With ambient richness and a delicately mindful soundtrack, Myers guided viewers from cinematic immersion to the surrounding how-it’s-made theatricality. Yet Bailey takes it for her subtle yet text-attentive cacophony, allowing reality to hover dangerously at the blinking edge of the protagonist’s delicately skewed perception.

Choreography (Dance)

Barbara F. Cullen, Smokey Joe's Café, The Encore Musical Theatre Co.
•Jennifer Consiglio, From My Hometown, Meadow Brook Theatre
•Jill Dion, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, Hilberry Theatre
•Marcus R. White, Xanadu, Meadow Brook Theatre
•Robin Wilson, Ain't Misbehavin', Performance Network Theatre

Dion used flashy footwork and thundering tap rhythms to add old-Hollywood glitz to an indulgent revue. Spontaneity was Wilson’s secret weapon, using an off-the-cuff approach to perpetuate the winning feel of friendly, uninhibited revelry. Consiglio played to the strengths of three distinctive performers and their equally divergent characters, further elevating their invigorating moves together. A little rock, a little boogie-woogie, and a lot disco, White tied the camp together with headlong commitment and trumpeting excess. Cullen’s win reflects reeling innovations and exhausting displays by a dynamo company — a seemingly endless supply of wonder and delight.

Choreography (Movement or Fight)

Jill Dion, The Tempest, Elizabeth Theatre
•Rob Arbaugh, Mary Stuart, Meadow Brook Theatre
•Dave Early, Snowbound, Planet Ant Theatre
•David Sterritt, Cyrano, Hilberry Theatre
•Joseph Zettelmaier, Burn This, Performance Network Theatre

Early tackled the caged-animal feel of the desperate actions that come from dire straits, injecting climactic scenes with unconstrained horror. Arbaugh’s work blossomed even the smallest moments of struggle into anguish befitting a melodrama writ large in a big space. Sprawling, drunken reactions and visceral hits were the hallmark of Zettelmaier’s covertly controlled chaos. Sterritt kept things light but deft, delivering ostentatious swordplay with impeccable skill. Above all, though, Dion’s sparkling physicality informed a passel of superior fools and an ethereal Ariel, culminating in a nightmare banquet that was truly unforgettable.

Scenic Design (Proscenium Seating)

Melinda Pacha, Autobahn, UDM Theatre Co.
•Toni Auletti, The Light in the Piazza, The Encore Musical Theatre Co.
•Monika Essen, Red, Performance Network Theatre
•Brian Kessler, Spreading it Around, Meadow Brook Theatre
•Tommy LeRoy, Love Song, Planet Ant Theatre

A stately marriage of architecture and art completed Auletti’s vision of a tourist’s vast, breathtaking Italy. Conversely, realism permeated the artist’s studio rendered by Essen’s patient, freshly paint-spilled details. Kessler spread delightful Easter eggs through the thematic gallop of a Florida planned community. Ingenious convertible spaces are no surprise from LeRoy; one stunning demonstration of manic claustrophobia made this design something unique. However, Pacha takes the honor for taking a concept as static and predictable as “in a car” and launching it to new imaginative heights.

Scenic Design (Surround Seating)

Janine Woods Thoma, If You Start a Fire [Be Prepared to Burn], The New Theatre Project
•Bartley Bauer, The Understudy, Williamston Theatre
•Monika Essen, The Importance of Being Earnest, Tipping Point Theatre
•Keith Paul Medelis, Fugue, The New Theatre Project
•Daniel C. Walker, A Stone Carver, Purple Rose Theatre Co.

Walker soaked a modest old kitchen in tender familiarity, baring a psyche in which weathered fixtures and outdated décor are inextricable from the treasured remembrance of home. Reflecting the mysterious world of the play, Medelis turned a blank space into something antiseptic, regimented, and, above all, unknowable. Bauer steeped the Williamston Theatre in so many backstage talismans and accouterments, no one viewer could have soaked it all in. Reflecting the overstated excess of the period, Essen added a wild whirligig bonus feature to a bubbly deco confection of a stage. Yet for pure immersive apartment-living overload, Thoma’s decisively cluttered, gadget-enabled power surge could not be beat.