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Dezart Performs Nominated for 34 Desert Star Awards:Most Nominations Ever for Dezart Performs.
Winners Announced By The Desert Theatre League October 1 in Live Ceremony at Sun City Palm Desert
www.dezartperforms.org
2 August 2023 – Palm Springs, CA: Getting ready for its landmark 16th season, the celebrated Dezart Performs (www.dezartperforms.org) has secured a recording breaking 34 nominations for the 37th annual“Desert Star Awards” including double nominations in the categories of Outstanding Production of a Drama (Professional) for THE GARBOLOGISTS and also the drama with music THE CHOIR BOY.
Another double nomination was in the category of Outstanding Production of a Comedy (Professional) for A BRIGHT NEW BOISE and A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE GYNECOLOGIC ONCOLOGY UNIT AT THE MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CENTER OF NEW YORK CITY.
This means that all four of Dezart Performs’ productions were nominated in the top category. All told the Dezart Performs production of CHOIR BOY received eight nominations. A BRIGHT NEW BOISE received 11. THE GARBOLOGISTS received nine, and A FUNNY THING…. garnered six.
“Despite the difficulties faced by small theatres throughout the country, it is uplifting to witness a collaborative community that is dedicated to honoring the arts and preserving its vitality,” said Dezart Performs Founding Artistic Director Michael Shaw. “We are so proud to be included in this thriving arena.”
The complete list of “Desert Star Awards” nominations for Dezart Performs are as follows:
- Outstanding Production – Comedy – Professional
A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE…
- Outstanding Production of a Drama – Professional
CHOIR BOY
THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Director of a Comedy – Professional
Randy Brenner, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE…
Michael Shaw, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
- The Michel Cruickshank Award for Outstanding Director of a Drama – Professional
Michael Matthews, CHOIR BOY
Michael Shaw, THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy – Professional
Eric Patrick Harper, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Eric Zak, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE…
- Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy – Professional
Nicole Delsack, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Aviva Pressman, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE…
- Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama – Professional
Andre G. Brown, CHOIR BOY
Dennis Renard, CHOIR BOY
Jacob Alden Roa, THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama, Professional
Nathalie Bennett, THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy – Professional
Jacob Cherry, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Austin Minard, BRIGHT NEW BOISE
- Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy – Professional
Deborah Harmon, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE…
Lea Madda, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Barbara Niles, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE…
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama – Professional
Maurice Alpharicio, CHOIR BOY
Nicholas Hormann, CHOIR BOY
David Alan Madrick, CHOIR BOY
- Outstanding Set Design – Professional
Jimmy Cuomo, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Jimmy Cuomo, THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Sound Design – Professional
Clark Dugger, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Clark Dugger, THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Lighting Design – Professional
Phil Murphy, THE GARBOLOGISTS
Phil Murphy, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Louise Ross, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE
Louise Ross, CHOIR BOY
Greg Thorneycroft, THE GARBOLOGISTS
- Outstanding Special Effects – Professional
Clark Dugger/Greg Thorneycroft, THE GARBOLOGISTS
Details about the upcoming 16th Season for Dezart Performs follow:
THE THANKSGIVING PLAY
A comedy written by Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Michael Shaw
November 3-5; 10-12, 2023
Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month.
“Hilarious. A cheerfully cutthroat production!”
– The New York Times
“Hysterically funny and brutally on target.”
– Forbes
“A hilarious envelope in which [the playwright] delivers a brutal satire about mythmaking, and thus, in a way, about theater itself.”
– The New York Times
* * *
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME
A dramatic comedy written by Heidi Schreck
Directed by Craig Wells
January 19 – 21; 26 – 28
2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist
2019 Tony Award nominated, Best Play
2019 Obie award for Best New American Play
2019 Off-Broadway Alliance Award, Best New Play
2019 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play
Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.
“…brilliantly crafted show, harrowing and funny and humane, that accesses the political through the deeply personal.”
– New York Magazine
“A highly entertaining, deeply informative and ultimately hopeful examination of the document that impacts every single one of us, every single day of our lives.”
–Chicago Sun Times
“This funny, tragic and deeply unsettling one-woman tour de force shows who the US constitution serve — and who it lets down.”– The Guardian
* * *
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
A drama written by Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Michael Shaw
March 1-3; 8-10
2022 Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD unfolds in a cubicle where two seated people unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds. Keith, a mortgage broker, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a “specific kind of sadness.” At this desk in the middle of America, loan talk opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.
“Must-see heartbreaker of a play!”
– The New York Times
“Another extraordinary play by Samuel D. Hunter!”
– New York Stage Review
“Easily one of the best of the year!”
–The Wall Street Journal
“…one of the most moving new plays of the year!”
– TheatreMania
“‘A Case for the Existence of God’ Finds What Connects Us All and Holiness in Humanity.”
–The Observer
* * *
MR. PARKER
A drama written by Michael McKeever
Directed by Randy Brenner
April 12 – 14; 19 — 21
At 54 years old, Terry Parker finds himself at a crossroads in his life. After the loss of his partner of 30 years, he finds himself suddenly single and unable to adjust to a world that has moved on without him. After a night of heavy drinking, he wakes up with a 28-year-old bartender-slash-Uber-driver. These two very different people begin a tentative relationship, and what starts out as a one-night stand becomes a journey of self-discovery for a man trying to let go of the past and move forward, while dealing with the pressures of being middle-aged, gay and alone in the ever-changing landscape of today’s America.
“A very intelligent, absorbing look at contemporary relationships and the conflicts that keep us all from aging with joy and peace of mind. This play is a real discovery!”
– Rex Reed
“The protagonist of this new play by Michael McKeever steps gingerly out of grief’s stasis and into the unknown.”–The New York Times
