Almost perfect night for 'White Witch'

Play tops 13 categories at Actor Boy Awards

Marcia Rowe, Gleaner Writer

Monday was brilliant for the team from the Montego Bay-based Fairfield Theatre, and their production titled White Witch.

Nominated in 14 of the 19 categories, in the 21st staging of the island's premier theatre event, the ITI Jamaica Centre 2010 Actor Boy Awards, the cast and crew walked away with 13 awards, leaving their eastern counterparts stupefied.

The avalanche of awards for the Douglas Prout-directed and Jane Crichton-penned play began from the outset, the first category: Set Design - Michael Lorde - White Witch.

The accolades were to continue.

Costume Design - Quindell Ferguson; Original Song as well as Original Score - David Tulloch; Best New Play - Jane Crichton; Best Musical, respectively; Best Actor and Actress in a Supporting Role - Philip Clarke and Noelle Kerr; and Best Actor and Actress in a Lead Role - Keiran King and Maylynne Lowe-Walton, respectively, all had one thing in common, White Witch.

When the announcement for the winner in the marquee categories: Best Director and Best Production came, the writing was already on the wall. Thus the very vocal and often exuberant audience pre-empted the presenters by shouting White Witch! before the declarations were made, the young cast from the west was overjoyed and could barely contain themselves.

Director humbled

But their director, Prout, was humbled by the awards. He reprimanded his cast of young thespians in no uncertain terms. "Even in triumph, there's dignity," he scolded them in accepting his award for Best Director.

"Temper down, remember values of temperance in great moments," he asked of them.

But Prout has been there before, copping the coveted award for Best Director in 2009. He spoke to The Gleaner after the ceremony.

"It's not so much the awards, the awards are just a representation ... but it is the responsibility that comes with it. It's a message to the youngsters that there is a channel, an outlet for your creative energies, that you do not have to go do crime and drugs and teenage pregnancy. If you work hard you will see some rewards," Prout said.

He also stated that his large cast of 30 comprised persons of diverse backgrounds and experiences, from high-school students to the experienced Lowe-Walton.

Red-carpet affair

The red-carpet affair held at the intimate Pantry Playhouse, on Dumfries Road in New Kingston, also had Trevor Nairne and Patrick Brown saving the face of the east after they were awarded Best Lighting Design for their production of Midnight at Puss Creek, the only category that the western production, White Witch, team was not able to take.

The Jambiz pair of Nairne and Brown walked away with Best Special Effects for the same production too.

Other winners of the evening were: Best Comedy, Stages Production - The Plumber; Best Revue, Jamaica Youth Theatre - Graffiti, and Best Children's Theatre, Campion College's Cindy, the sole nominee for the category.

Additionally, a special award was presented to the Jamaica Schools' Drama Festival (JSDF) for its 60 years of excellent service to Jamaican theatre. Quindell Ferguson, chairperson of JSDF, accepted the award from Nicole Brown, one of the organisers of the Actor Boy Awards.

But the evening was more than the awards. The programme was well organised and beautifully executed. It was entertaining from the get-go. After the singing of a Sonny Bradshaw arrangement of the Jamaican National Anthem (in reggae), emcees Teisha Duncan and Maurice Bryan got the event off to, in the words of Fae Ellington, one of the presenters of the evening, "a scintillating start".

Making a dramatic entrance through the audience, in a cabaret-style performance, the two danced and sang their way to the stage. Throughout the programme, their constant changing of roles and costumes depicting characters of the plays nominated for Best Production, the two wove a web of highly sustainable interest, maximising the witty lines from Scarlett Beharie's script.

As the curtains came down on another Actor Boy Awards, the duo closed the presentation as they started it, with lovely fanfare.