Actor Boy Awards to Celebrate Musical Theatre
Published:Tuesday | March 1, 2016 | 2:44 PMShereita Grizzle
Plans for this year's Actor Boy Awards, set to take place on April 4 at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, are still being finalised. However, according to Maurice Bryan, a member of the Actor Boy Awards Committee, the focus for this year's celebrations will be on Jamaica's musical theatre.
"We found that last year, there was a high number of musical plays nominated, and this year, our top nominee is a musical play, so we thought, why not celebrate musicals, and so our theme for this year is Celebrating Musical Theatre."
The opera, 1865, which re-tells the story of the Morant Bay Rebellion, came out as this year's top nominee, nabbing 15 nominations, four more than the night's other big nominee, Jambiz International's Duppy Whisperer.
The musical, written by Franklin Halliburton, emerged the front-runner after receiving nominations in several categories including: Best Drama, Best Tragedy, Best Musical, Best Lighting Design, Best Set Design and Best Original Song. Two of the production's cast members also received nominations in the category, Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
11 categories
Duppy Whisperer was nominated in 11 categories, including Best Comedy and Best New Jamaican Play. Sakina Deer, one of the play's leading actresses, has been nominated in one of the biggest categories - Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Her cast mates, Glen Campbell and Camille Davis, also nabbed nominations in two big categories as well - Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Actress in a Lead Role, respectively.
Basil Dawkins' Guilt Trip and Dahlia Harris' Ol' Fyah Stick both have nine nominations. Michael Holgate's Riot Act has eight.
Bryan told The Gleaner that aside from the usual nominees making the list again in 2016, he is happy that a few newcomers have also been nominated.
"The nominations this year are spread across the board, so we should have an interesting night come April 4," he said.
"Aside from the persons that usually make it onto the list, we have a few new names, including Julene Robinson and Shanique Brown, who have been doing extremely well over the past few years."
He went on to say that the nominees this year are also multi-talented, as many actors and actresses have been nominated in categories outside of those designated for acting.
"It's nice to see our people spreading their wings," he explained. "This year, we have a few persons being nominated outside of the categories they are usually nominated in, like Sakina Deer, being nominated for her role as a costume designer, and Nadean Rawlins being nominated in the Best Director category. It just goes to show how talented our people are."
The announcements were made on Monday night at the New Kingston Conference Centre.