‘Man of La Mancha’ and ‘The Royale’ win big at the Barrymore Awards
Arden Theatre Company’s production of Lynn Nottage’s 'Clyde’s' and People's Light's 'Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Panto' were among other big winners
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On Monday night, Theatre Philadelphia hosted the Barrymore Awards Ceremony at FringeArts in Old City. The annual event celebrated the best of Philadelphia’s drama scene of the 2022-23 season, with 10 regional theaters winning 24 awards recognizing 43 productions.
The most-decorated production came from Delaware Theatre Company, which won seven awards for Man of La Mancha. The inventive show skipped the pit orchestra and instead handed the actors instruments, including five guitars, a cello, violin, accordion, and percussion, to perform as they sang. It won outstanding overall production of a musical and outstanding ensemble in a musical; Delaware Theatre Company head Matt Silva won for outstanding director; and Victor Rodriguez Jr., who played Don Quixote’s squire, Sancho Panza, received the award for outstanding leading performance in a musical. The show also won in supporting performance, music direction, and lighting design.
The outstanding overall production in a play award went to The Royale, Lantern Theatre Company’s biographical work about boxing legend Jack Johnson. Phillip Brown played the titular role and won for outstanding leading performance; director Zuhairah McGill also won for outstanding choreography and movement in a play.
Arden Theatre Company’s production of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, set in a Reading sandwich shop staffed by formerly incarcerated folks, also won big. Malika Oyetimein was recognized as outstanding director of a play, and the five-actor cast who kept the kitchen banter sharp and funny (Tiffany Barrett, Kishia Nixon, Walter DeShields, Brian Cowden, and J. Hernandez) won for outstanding ensemble in a play.
The world premiere of Pulitzer-winner James Ijames’s emotionally charged Abandon, produced by Theatre Exile, won for outstanding original production. Melanye Finister, who played the mother haunted by her son, won for outstanding leading performance in a play.
Two awards for outstanding supporting performance in a play — the Barrymore Awards features gender-neutral acting categories and two actors win from each — went to actors Sarah Gliko and Brandon J. Pierce, who performed alongside each other in the Wilma Theater’s Eternal Life Pt.1.
The award for outstanding original music went to Alex Bechtel for the world premiere of Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Panto from People’s Light; the production also won for Rebecca Kanach’s costume design.
Each winner’s trophies were designed by Nyred Jackson, a young actor who recently graduated from West Chester University. The design features the Philadelphia skyline with the comedy and tragedy masks.
The Barrymore Awards also recognized Anthony Martinez-Briggs, who received the F. Otto Haas Award for Emerging Artist, which includes $15,000. The Philadelphia Award for Social Insight went to Simpatico Theatre for A Shadow That Broke the Light, written by brothers Charlie and Adam DelMarcelle, who lost their brother to an opioid overdose in 2014. Charlie performed the one-man show with a backdrop of paper squares that Adam created from fibers from clothing donated by families of those who died from overdoses. The theater company received $25,000 for the award.