Santa Paula Theater Center: ‘The Night Alive’ a Four Star Theater winner
March 15, 2017
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
While the film community was handing out Oscar awards somewhere in La La Land on Sunday, February 26, nearly a hundred community theater mavens were honored at Ventura County’s Four Star Theater Awards at the High Street Theater in Moorpark.
By John Hankins
Special to the Santa Paula Times
The marquee was bright, the carpet red, the EmCees engaging and the photographers were snapping the well-dressed recipients in between highlights from the most outstanding live plays produced in 2016.
They are: “Nunsense” (Camarillo Skyway Playhouse), “Amadeus” (Conejo Players Theatre), “All My Sons” (Elite Theatre Company), “The Addams Family” (High Street Arts Center), “Skylight” (Ojai ACT) and “The Night Alive” (Santa Paula Theatre Center).
It was a lively affair for live theater in Ventura County, in which those six community theaters -- comprising the Alliance -- offer over 1,000 seats on any given weekend, tapping into local talents presenting at least 30 comedies, dramas, musicals and dramedies each year.
“There were a lot of tough decisions, but I thought the winners were represented very well across the county,” said Shawn Lanz of Conejo Players Theatre, the Alliance’s Administrator for many years. He’s stepping down now, and for the 2017 season and beyond, Eric Umali of the Camarillo Skyway Playhouse is stepping up. He and his wife Jolyn Johnson were the EmCees.
The Four-Star Awards are the county’s local equivalent of the Tonys, but the judging is different as the six theaters are judged by five people from the other theaters, which helps foster fairness.
“The seriousness of the Four Star Alliance has been proved” over seven years, said Dean Johnson of Camarillo Skyway Playhouse. “Ventura County is a very heavy theater community, heads and shoulders above a lot of Los Angeles (community) theaters.”
Besides the six Alliance theaters, the county is home to the professional Rubicon Theater, various improv companies, traveling pros, colleges and some smaller venues under 100 seats.
The awards show included scenes and songs from each outstanding production and a popular slide show created by Steve Grumette of Ojai ACT.
The songs were mostly on the humorous end of the spectrum: “A Difficult Transition” from “Nunsense,” “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun” from “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Buddy Kissed Me” – “Who Will Love Me as I Am” duet by two women joined at birth from “Side Show,” and “Always A Bridesmaid” from “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.”
A poignant “Going Home” scene about dementia from “The Other Place” provided a serious pause, but the whole affair was given a riotous send-off by “The Addams Family” and their dead and nearly-dead relatives in the exciting dance number “When You’re an Addams.”
A full list of all categories and winners are on Facebook at:
www.facebook.com/vc4star
