Produced by Coralie WoodDirected by Stephen Pike
Llewellyn Hall 22 February 2014
Review by Len Power 22 February 2014
It doesn’t seem 19 years since the CAT awards first
commenced but there we were again all dressed up on Saturday night at Llewellyn
Hall to celebrate this unique and popular theatrical event. The ACTEWAGL Canberra Area Theatre Awards
honour a wide range of theatre practitioners, both on and off-stage. School and Youth productions as well as Adult
productions are considered for awards.
The CAT judges are very busy and committed people,
travelling far and wide around New South Wales to places such as Albury, Orange
and Wollongong, as well as Canberra, to assess the quality of productions. A weighted point system ensures that every
production has an equal chance of scoring nominations. There are 49 CAT award categories and many of
the categories have several nominations.
This year, two new categories were added for ‘Best Dance Performance by
an Individual Or Ensemble’ and ‘Best Dance Direction’.
This year’s show was amongst the best. Tightly directed by Stephen Pike, the show was
consistently entertaining and moved at a good pace. Well-known actor, John Wood, and Canberra
musical director and CAT judge, Ian MacLean, made a great team as comperes of
the evening. The award winners all made mercifully
short but interesting speeches and the spectacular lighting and clear sound by
Chris Neal of Eclipse Lighting and Sound was especially notable. Musical director, Garrick Smith, delighted
the audience with a hilariously spectacular entrance in a huge Liberace-like
white cloak.
There were some great moments amongst the entertainment
presented between the award announcements.
Canberra’s Damien Bermingham, now professional actor/singer and previous
CAT award winner, beautifully sang Andrew Lloyd Webber’s emotional, ‘Till I
Hear You Sing’. The beautiful Jenna
Roberts reprised her performance as a sad and faded woman with the electrifying,
‘The Very First Dating Video Of Rose Ritz’ from the musical, ‘I Love You,
You’re Perfect, Now Change’. The cast of
Free Rain Theatre’s upcoming production of ‘Forbidden Broadway’ gave us a
delightful sneak preview of their show’s sendup of ‘Les Miserables’ and veteran
actors Graham Robertson and Oliver Baudert demonstrated their years of stage
experience with beautifully nuanced performances in a scene from their play ‘A
Month Of Sundays’.
There seemed to be quite a number of double awards this
year. I wonder if that takes a bit of
the shine off winning when you have to share an award? Anyway, if you’d like to see the full list of
winners for the CAT awards, go to the CATS website at www.catawards.com.au.
Running the CAT Awards costs big money, so it was good to
see that the list of sponsors of the various awards is growing. Local and New South Wales businesses and individual
members of Parliament as well as solo sponsors are all showing their support. Founder of the CAT Awards, Coralie Wood,
closed the show with a heart-felt speech that should see the CATS continue for at
least another 20 years!
Originally broadcast on ArtsoundFM's 'Dress Circle' program Sunday 5pm 23 February 2014
