NEXT TO NORMAL, PARADE & More Nominated for 2013 Ovation Awards

Nominees for the 2013 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards were announced on the evening of Monday, September 16 at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles, which is owned and operated by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Community Service Division. The nominations were revealed by past Ovation Award recipients Susanne Blakeslee, Shirley Jo Finney, Ryan Johnson, Michael Matthews, Gregory Nabours, Janet Roston, and John Sloan, along with LA Stage Alliance Chief Executive Officer Terence McFarland.

Center Theatre Group received the most nominations (29), followed by La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts (24), 3-D Theatricals (15), Rogue Machine (12), and Chance Theater (11). Center Theatre Group garnered nominations for The Nether at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (9), Joe Turner's Come and Gone at the Mark Taper Forum (8), The Royale (7) at KDT, The Second City's A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens! at KDT (2), Anything Goes (1) and The Scottsboro Boys (1), both at the Ahmanson Theatre, and for Best Season. La Mirada's nominations are for Next to Normal (8), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (7), Spring Awakening (7), Jekyll & Hyde (1), and Best Season. Nods to 3-D Theatricals are for Parade (12), and Shrek the Musical (3). Rogue Machine's nominations are spread between four productions - Dying City (5), One Night In Miami (4), A Bright New Boise (1), Dirty Filthy Love Story (1), and the company is also nominated for Best Season. Chance Theatre received 11 nominations for its production of Triassic Parq. Click here for a full list of nominees.

Ovation Honors, which recognize outstanding achievement in areas that are not among the standard list of nomination categories have been awarded to Michael Redfield (Composition for a Play, Walking the Tightrope at 24th Street Theatre), Ken Merckx (Fight Choreography, Cymbeline at A Noise Within), Derek Lux and Christian Anderson (Puppet Design, Shrek the Musical, 3-D Theatricals), and Jeffrey Elias Teeter (Video Design, On the Spectrum at the Fountain Theatre).

For the 2012-2013 voting season, there are a grand total of 198 nominations for 66 productions, presented by 40 companies. There were 342 total productions registered from 148 companies. Of those productions registered, 99 were Ovation Recommended, identified during their runs as scoring in the top quarter of all productions in the Overall Production categories.

Founded in 1989, the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards are the only peer-judged theatre awards in Los Angeles. Voters are Los Angeles theatre professionals who are chosen each year, through an application process, by the Ovation Awards Rules Committee. The list of nominees is determined by a tabulation of scores conducted by Green Hasson Janks. This year's Ovation Award eligibility period ran from August 27, 2012 through August 25, 2013.

LA Stage Alliance is dedicated to building awareness, appreciation and support for the performing arts in Greater Los Angeles through community building, collaborative marketing/audience development, professional development to strengthen the sector, and advocacy. Providing access to the performing arts for patrons and access to information and resources for organizations has been the mission of the Alliance for over 35 years. The Alliance connects artists and arts administrators from over 500 groups annually in a six county region with opportunities to engage, inspire, educate and entertain over four million households that engage with the arts in our community. The Alliance engenders a stronger and more connected creative Los Angeles.

LA Stage Alliance programs are sponsored in part by Actors Equity, The Biller Family Foundation, California Arts Council, California Community Foundation, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, DatabaseWorks, the DEW Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Goldstar, James Irvine Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, Bakers Man Productions, Ken Werther Publicity, Live Event Pros, Los Angeles County Supervisors through the LA County Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, SDC, The Shubert Foundation, and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

This year's Ovation Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, November 3 at 7pm at the historic San Gabriel Mission Playhouse, located at 320 S. Mission Drive in San Gabriel. For more information, visit www.OvationAwards.com.