Copious Notes

It’s only November, but Balagula Theatre can already lay claim to an award-winning season. The company, based at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar, took its productions of Samuel Beckett’s Play and Not I to Morehead State University for the community theater festival at the Kentucky Theatre Association’s annual conference, and it came home with several of the top prizes.

They included:

Ryan Case shown in Samuel Beckett's "Play." He won best actor at the Kentucky Theatre Association's community theatre festival for the performance and best director for "Not I." Photo by Rich Copley.

Best performance: “Selected Plays of Samuel Beckett,” performed by the Balagula Theatre Company

Outstanding director: Ryan Case and Natasha Williams, “Selected Plays of Samuel Beckett,” Balagula Theatre

Outstanding actor: Ryan Case, “Selected Plays of Samuel Beckett,” Balagula Theatre

Excellence in lighting design: Gareth Evans, “Selected Plays of Samuel Beckett,” Balagula Theatre

Excellence in scenic design: Gareth Evans, “Selected Plays of Samuel Beckett,” Balagula Theatre

The remainder of the community theater festival award winners were:

1st Runner Up for best performance: “Overtones,” performed by Shelby County Community Theatre

Outstanding actress: Lynn McReynolds Chenault, “Overtones,” Shelby County Community Theatre

Outstanding supporting actor: Cody Anderson, “Little Women,” Artists Collaborative Theatre, Elkhorn City

Outstanding supporting actress: Teresa Myers, “One Freaky Afternoon in the Office Lunchroom,” Village Players, Fort Thomas

Outstanding ensemble: “Overtones,” Shelby County Community Theatre

Excellence in costume design: “Little Women,” Artists Collaborative Theatre

Outstanding technical crew: “Little Women,” Artists Collaborative Theatre

Excellence in stage management: Peggy Kenney, “One Freaky Afternoon in the Office Lunchroom,” Village Players

Spirit award: “Little Women,” performed by Artists Collaborative Theatre

The Lexington area was also distinguished in KTA’s inaugural Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Competition, where Danville’s Elizabeth Orndorff  won the top prize for “Aidan’s Gift” and Lexington’s Walter May was second runner up with “Gone Astray.” First runner up was “Bernice Sizemore’s 70th Birthday” by Nancy Gall-Clayton of Louisville.

In the High School festival, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s production of William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” was first runner up. The winner was Owensboro High School’s “Almost, Maine” and the second runner up was Bardstown High School’s “Zoo Story.”

For their wins, Balagula Theatre, Shelby County Community Theatre, Owensboro High School and Dunbar High will participate in the Southeastern Theatre Conference’s play competitions when the annual regional theater event comes to Lexington March 3-7.

Pete Sears and Vanessa Becker as Mr. and Mrs. Martin in Balagula Theatre's "The Bald Soprano." Photo by Eugene Williams.

Warhorses need not apply on the Lexington Theatre scene this weekend. Bluegrass Community and Technical College and Balagula Theatre both offer up offbeat offerings this weekend, one homegrown and one from across the pond.

BCTC’s Theatre Program opens Jane Martin’s Middle Aged White Guys Thursday night, so we’ll start with them. The play, which premiered at the 1994 Humana Festival of New American Plays, centers on three brothers who gather every decade at a garbage dump to toast the memory of the woman one of them married and the other two had flings with. They eventually drove her to drive herself off a cliff, but with a little help from the Almighty, she’ll have her revenge. The play runs through Saturday at the Talon Winery and Vineyards.

Balagula Theatre opens French-Romanian author Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano Sunday at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar for a two-week run. The play presents two couples, the Smiths and the Martins having a visit that slips down a slope from normalcy to complete non-sequiturs. Directed by Natasha Williams, it is the second in Balagula’s season of existentialist, absurdiust plays. Natasha’s is arranging a special menu to compliment the play.

Quest Community Church's new state-of-the-art 2,400-seat auditorium was built with private funds. Could Lexington arts supporters do something similar?

What do you think of Lexington’s inventory of theaters and other venues for live performances?

Currently, leaving aside our behemoth of Rupp Arena, our major arts and entertainment venues are the Singletary Center for the Arts, which seats about 1,500, and the Lexington Opera House, which accomodates just under 1,000. Then, in the seats-a-few-hundred category, you have the black box theater in the Downtown Arts Center, the Lyric Theatre, which is currently being rennovated, and the Kentucky Theatre. There are also venues such as Studio Players’ Carriage House Theatre and the Lexington Children’s Theatre that are almost exclusively used by the groups that occupy them, and University spaces such as the University of Kentucky’s Guignol Theatre and Transylvania University’s Haggin Auditorium that are primarily used by the institutions.

Am I leaving any Big Kahunas out?

So, is that a good inventory. What do we lack?

Some lament we never got the major performing arts center that was supposed to happen where the courthouses now stand at Main and Limestone. Others say Lexington isn’t ready for a venue of that caliber. Others look at smaller spaces such as the Woodford Theatre’s venue in Falling Springs Arts and Recreation Center and wonder why Lexington couldn’t have something like that for groups that may see the Opera House as too big for their needs.

Still others say creativity trumps venues, and point to places such as Charleston, S.C., that have built vibrant performing arts scenes without an ideal inventory of venues. Here, we have examples such as Balagula Theatre at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar and the chamber music festivals that bookend the summer taking place in  an old tobacco barn at Shaker Village and Fasig-Tipton’s horse sales pavilion showing a creative use of non-traditional spaces in town.

Here’s another fly I’ll throw in the ointment: I just attended a concert last week in a new, state of the art 2,400-seat Lexington venue that would have been the envy of many area arts groups: Quest Community Church’s new sanctuary. If there is a desire for a new theater or theaters in town, do you need to have public funds to build it, or can the arts community come together to make something happen like, oh, Quest or a little baseball park near Broadway and New Circle that was built with private funds.

That’s sort of a distillation of conversations and thoughts I’ve had over the last several years about Lexington’s theater space.

So, what do you think? Hit the comment button and let’s talk.

Press the play button to hear our podcast with Balagula Theatre co-director Ryan Case.

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

Balagula Theatre opens its first official season Sunday, Sept. 13 with ‘B’ for Beckett (A Night of Samuel Beckett’s Plays). It kicks off a lineup of absurdist, exesstentialist theater at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar, including works by Eugene Ionesco and Jean Paul Sartre.

Read more about Balagula and Studio Players’ season opener, Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest here.

And see an Unexpected Guest slide show here.