We’re thrilled to pass along the Overall Excellence Award Winners for 2011 FringeNYC.  Some of our very favorite shows and performers are being celebrated and we’re so thankful that we were able to experience these talented performances this year.  Congratulations to all the winners!

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August 28, 2011 — Winners of the 2011 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Awards, as selected by an independent panel of nearly 50 theater professionals, are as follows:

Overall Production/Play

• PigPen Presents The Mountain Song
  • What we said: As always the only disappointment with PigPen is when the play is over; it’s hard to watch them leave the stage – the same way it is hard for a child to watch that
    

    favorite relative go home at the end of a giddy day of make-believe. The good news is PigPen is relocating to New York City so those who can’t get enough of them will now be able to see them a lot more. And as long as they’ll be putting on shows, I’ll be in the audience, watching: amazed and dazzled.

• The More Loving One

Overall Production/Musical

• Yeast Nation
• Pearl’s Gone Blue

Performance

• Jennifer Barnhart (The Legend of Julie Taymor,or The Musical That Killed Everybody!)
• Ryan Barry (In the Summer Pavilion)
• Miles Cooper (Elysian Fields)
• Patrick Byas (Sammy Gets Mugged)
• Casey McClellan (My Name Is Billy)
• Brian Charles Rooney (Winner Takes All)
• Lauren Hennessy (Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story)
  • What we said: [Hennessy] is breathtakingly real … often funny, sometimes sarcastic and deeply sexy … her chemistry with Choura (not only during their intimate moments
    

    but during her moments of longing as well) can be felt all the way in the back row, and considering this show is playing at The Ellen Stewart Theatre that’s saying a lot. When she sings she seduces and bewitches everyone in the room.

Playwriting

• Nicholas Billon (Greenland)
• A.D. Penedo (The Three Times She Knocked)
  • What we said: Writer A.D. Penedo has successfully taken a different type of relationship and made it not only understandable but accessible. By giving Eric a mechanism where he constantly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience we’re given a unique look into the mind of a man consumed not so much by a woman but by a way of operating. By Eric himself explaining his little quirks and foibles to us we are left free to sit back and watch as his confessions to us pave the way for his actions toward Tara. And sure, while he may seem a little out of his mind, at least he’s explaining his motives to us.
    

• Bella and the Pool Boy (Dennis Flanagan)

Music Composition

• Chris Rael (Araby)
• Dusty Brown (The Ballad of Rusty and Roy)

Ensemble

• Jersey Shoresical
  • What we said: Fans of (or those who admit to watching) Jersey Shore will love Jersey Shoresical for the extreme attention to detail paid by the creative team.  People who have
    

    never seen one moment of Jersey Shore will also love Jersey Shoresical – because the final product is just that good.  Either way, this was one hour of entertainment that left me clamoring for more.

• The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady
  • What we said: What delights so thoroughly is how faithful each character remains to their Brady/Partridge origins while faithfully moving the Shakespearean plots along.  This story was just waiting to be done.  Thanks to the fantastic team of Garvey and Stern it has now been done perfectly.
• Stimulated!
• Crawling with Monsters

Costume Design

• Stephanie Alexander (Le Gourmand, or Gluttony!)
• Mark Richard Caswell (Parker and Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow)
• Tara DeVincenzo (Technodulia Dot Com)

Directing

• Greg Foro (Hamlet)
  • What we said: At mid-performance, just after Hamlet has rigged a play to prick the conscience of his murderous uncle, Claudius, the two characters circle the stage silently for a beat, eyeing each other variously as hunter and quarry, before Claudius calls -”Give me some light!”- at which the house is plunged into darkness and we are moved to intermission. This delicious moment is a sample of the thoughtful direction and stagecraft on display here.
• Joshua Kahan Brody (Fourteen Flights)
• Alaska Reece Vance (The Disorientation of Butterflies)

Solo Performance

• Donna/Madonna
• The Day the Sky Turned Black
• Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You!
  

• Paper Cut
  • What we said: Rasooly supplies all the voices while working the miniature mechanics and characters. It’s an inspired visual performance. To a movie-literate audience, it’s catnip.
• Heroes and Other Strangers

Dance

• Wallstories
• When the Sky Breaks 3D
  • What we said: The choreography of When the Sky Breaks 3D is nothing short of amazing. Several scenes stand out in my mind – one in particular is a scene where the dancers are fighting. At first two, then four, in a syncopated expression of movement; they struggle against each other, and ultimately themselves. The movements are strong and forceful, falling and rising, breaking apart and coming together – mirroring so many different struggles within our lives. The audience held its breath until the final resolution, as the dancers stood in unity together under the threatening sky.

Video Design

• Cinty Ionescu (Nils’ Fucked Up Day)

TheaterMania Audience Favorite Award

• COBU – Dance like Drumming, Drum like Dancing.

Congratulations again to all those recognized for overall excellence!!

Related Posts:

• Hamlet (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Ampersand’s Rockstar – A Chat With Lauren Hennessy
• Paper Cut (Fringe Festival 2011)
• PigPen Presents: The Mountain Song (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The Three Times She Knocked (Fringe Festival 2011)

When I was scanning the list of Fringe shows that I intended to review this year my heart gave a little leap when I saw that PigPen would be returning again this year with The Mountain Song.  True, I’m probably not supposed to have a favorite before I even see the show, but after being completely and utterly entranced by last year’s Fringe offering The Nightmare Story I eagerly awaited their next play the way a doting mom awaits a favorite son’s visit home from college.

“What’s this play about?” I heard someone ask, as they navigated the Fringe Fairway of 4th Street and saw our long line.   “It’s about a carpenter who’s trying to get to his daughter’s wedding …” someone answered.  Clearly this person’s never seen a PigPen production before.  For, while this may be what the story is “about” … this was not what we were all waiting to see.  This simple synopsis does little to account for the fact that half of PigPen’s remaining shows are now already sold out.

A few moments later as we filed into the theatre it became clear what we were there for: the exuberance, enthusiasm and unbridled talent of the troupe that calls themselves PigPen made up of Arya Shahi, Ben Ferguson, Dan Weschler, Ryan Melia, Curtis Gillen, Alex Falberg and Matt Nuernberger.  They commanded the stage as they played music they’ve become popular for, foot-stomping, head-bopping, hand-clapping folk music played on banjo, fiddle, tambourine, drum, guitar, and accordion.  Later they will add in an electric guitar.

As the story settles in they captivate and charm the audience with a unique blend of shadow puppets, song, inventive props, and good old fashioned imagination.  While much of their appeal rests with their easy humor and their wry delivery when the story calls for deep sentiment these guys can conjure up a feeling of heartbreak or poignancy as easily as they evoke airplanes, serve up giants, or give a voice to a mountain.  So yes, we watch as the carpenter goes in search of his daughter in order to attend her wedding.  But that’s not what we’re held by.  It is the way each moment of their story carries a hidden treasure, a drop of exhilaration, a perfect twinkle of resourcefulness and realization. “That’s a good story,” they conclude, “sad but pretty … they way a story ought to be“.

As always the only disappointment with PigPen is when the play is over; it’s hard to watch them leave the stage – the same way it is hard for a child to watch that favorite relative go home at the end of a giddy day of make-believe.  The good news is PigPen is relocating to New York City so those who can’t get enough of them will now be able to see them a lot more.  And as long as they’ll be putting on shows, I’ll be in the audience, watching: amazed and dazzled.

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PigPen Presents: The Mountain Song
PigPen Theatre Co.
Writer: Alex Falberg, Arya Shahi, Ben Ferguson, Curtis Gillen, Dan Weschler, Matt Nuernberger, Ryan Melia

1h 0m
www.PigPenTheatre.com
VENUE #12: 4th Street Theatre
Thu 18 @ 6:30 Mon 22 @ 7:15 Thu 25 @ 10 Fri 26 @ 3:45 Sat 27 @ 12*

Related Posts:

• FringeNYC 2011 Announces Overall Excellence Award Winners
• It’s A Sunshine Day For Stephen Garvey, Writer Of “The Bardy Bunch”
• Paper Cut (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The Panic Diaries (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Top Drawer (Fringe Festival 2011)