The 36th annual Carbonell Awards were handed out amid shrieks and thunderous applause from the audience at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Only one pair of presenters was impaired -- or aided, you choose -- by alcohol, and there was just the right amount of surprise in most acceptance speeches.
There was also a tribute to the late Manuel Carbonell, sculptor of the statuette winners receive. And in between awards, actors performed songs from each musical nominated for 'Best Production.' The Maltz Theatre Jupiter blew the others out of the park, taking home seven Carbonells. But Miami's theater companies came home with a handful of awards, too -- and even got in a few digs at their competitors in their acceptance speeches.
Click below the jump to see who won what -- and what Miami's sassy actors had to say about it.
This year, the prized Best Production Carbonells went to the musical Crazy for You from the Maltz and the Arthur Miller play All My Sons from Palm Beach Dramaworks.
These plays turned out to be the favorites: Crazy for You's Mark Martino and All My Sons' J. Barry Lewis also took home the Best Director awards, and Helen Gregory of Crazy for You won the Best Musical Direction award. Best Actors were Matt Loehr of Crazy for You and Kenneth Tigar of All My Sons. Crazy for You even got Shea Sullivan the Carbonell for Best Choreography.
The Best Actress awards mixed it up a little: Deborah Sherman won Best Actress of a Play for Side Effects at Broward's Mosaic Theatre, and Catherine Walker won the musical version for The Sound of Music at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.
In her acceptance speech, Sherman said in tears, "I never thought growing up in a crazy house could pay off in such a great way!" (She played a bipolar housewife in Side Effects.)
But Miami came out to represent, too. Avi Hoffman and Julie Kleiner, both in Hairspray at the Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, won Best Supporting Actor and Actress in a Musical. Hoffman started an all-night banter with Andrew Kato, director at the Maltz, saying Kato could qualify for a Tony instead of a Carbonell because of all the actors from New York he's hired.
The Best Supporting Actor and Actress in a Play were Marckenson Charles, for his performance in Superior Donuts at GableStage, and Angie Radosh, for Stuff at the Caldwell Theatre Company.
Michael McKeever's Stuff, about real-life hoarders the Collyer brothers, won the Best New Work Carbonell, and its Tim Bennett won the Carbonell for Best Scenic Design.
The cast of The Irish Curse, a Mosaic Theatre production, won the Carbonell for Best Ensemble. One of the actors marveled, among laughs, "It's a play about small penises! How [were] we going to make it work?"
Patrick Tennent won the Carbonell for Best Lighting Design, and Alexander Herrin for Best Sound Design, both for their work on the Actors' Playhouse's production of Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol.
The award for Best Costume Design went to Jose M. Rivera, for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Maltz Theatre Jupiter.
Other awards presented were:
The Howard Kleinberg Award: To Mary Becht, for contributions to the arts in South Florida.
The George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts: To Jay H. Harris, for his sponsorship and contributions to theatre in South Florida.
The Bill von Maurer Award for Theatrical Excellence: To the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, for being "the company that exemplifies theater" in South Florida.
The 36th Annual Carbonell Scholarships: To Cristina Caperna of Palm Beach County, Krystal Ortiz of Miami-Dade, and Rachel Brooks of Broward County.
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