'Ragtime' earns top honors at Jeff Awards

Drury Lane Theatre's “Ragtime,” the year's most nominated show was the odds-on favorite to walk away with the top prize at Monday's 42nd annual Joseph Jefferson Awards ceremony.

Drury Lane's largest-ever production lived up to its promise, earning seven awards including best musical.

The bravura revival of the Stephen Flaherty/Lynn Ahrens musical prevailed in nearly every eligible category, earning awards for director Rachel Rockwell, music director Roberta Duchak, lead actor and actress Quentin Earl Darrington and Cory Goodrich, supporting actor Mark David Kaplan and actress Valisia LeKae. Those, plus Tammy Mader's choreography award for “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” brought Drury Lane's total to eight awards, making it the evening's top winner. Unfortunately, its gain was Marriott Theatre's loss as the Lincolnshire theater was shut out of every category.

The Drury Lane musical's dominance underscored again the artistic renaissance the Oak Brook theater has enjoyed under producer Kyle DeSantis, who took over after the 2007 death of his grandfather, Drury Lane founder Tony DeSantis.

A great yell erupted with the announcement of “Ragtime” as the year's best musical, a show naysayers said couldn't be done at Drury Lane, recalled Kyle DeSantis, accepting the award.

“What drew our family together was the theater... all we ever wanted to do was follow in the footsteps of our grandfather and my aunt (the late Diane Van Lente),” said DeSantis, who thanked the Jeff Committee for their support over the last three years.

Resounding applause also greeted director Rockwell.

“I totally wanted this. I can't even be cool about it,” she said. “This was a blessing from beginning to end, and this is the icing on the cake.”

A visibly moved Darrington thanked the director for taking a chance on him and the theatrical community for embracing him.

“I humbly thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said. Like Drury Lane's other winners, Darrington also expressed appreciation to the DeSantis family.

“The best I hoped for tonight was to not fall out of my dress,” quipped Goodrich, who won for lead actress in a musical. “I had my first role on this stage as a nun. I'm so proud to receive this here.”

She also thanked her husband, “who teaches me to be a better person, to dream big and always keep plenty of frozen pizza”

Self-described hometown girl Duchak said she grew up seeing shows there.

“I can't tell you how much this means to me,” she said, concluding her speech by thanking her father for paying for her piano lessons.

Mader complimented her “amazing cast,” whose rip-roaring rendition of “Forget About the Boy” one of several production numbers from nominated shows injected a needed bit of energy into the proceedings.

“I share this with you,” she said.

Kate Fry and Rob Lindley were honored for their performances in “Oh Coward!” Writer's Theatre's oft-extended Noel Coward showcase, which also picked up a Jeff for best revue.

Tipping her hat to cast members Lindley and John Sanders, as well as director Jim Corti and music director Doug Peck, Fry said she couldn't think of anyone she'd rather be trapped in the back of a Glencoe bookstore with for six months.

“I want to thank Doug Peck for being the best musical director in the world who makes actors better actors, and singers better singers,” Lindley said.

Natasha Lowe earned a best actress award for her mesmerizing turn as the doomed Blanche in Writers' stellar revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

The Victory Gardens Theatre/Teatro Vista collaboration “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” Kristoffer Diaz's satire on television wrestling and international politics received five awards, including one for Diaz, director Edward Torres, lead actor Desmin Borges and fight choreographer David Woolley. The show also won for large play production.

Native New Yorker Diaz, whose play was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, thanked the city, Teatro Vista and Victory Gardens' Ignition Festival, a new works showcase which included “Chad Deity” during its 2008 debut.

“Thank you for entrusting me with your baby,” said Torres to Diaz as he accepted his directing award. He also thanked producer Sandy Shiner, “who made this all possible.”

Praising Diaz for “putting poetry into wrestling,” Shiner reminded the crowd that only after the play “exploded off the stage” in Chicago did it go to New York “it's home turf the second city.”

Steppenwolf Theatre's production of Tarell Alvin McCraney's brilliant “The Brother/Sister Plays” earned the ensemble award. While Chicago's TimeLine Theatre, which earned three nominations in the mid-size play category, won for its production of Aaron Sorkin's “The Farnsworth Invention.”

Walt Spangler's magnificent set for “A True History of the Johnstown Flood” at Chicago's Goodman Theater earned an award for large theater scenic design. Emcees Deanna Dunagan, Tony Award winner for “August: Osage County,” and Felicia P. Fields, Tony nominee for “The Color Purple” opened the ceremony with a reference to an article in The Dramatist magazine that proclaimed Chicago America's theater capital.

“There's no place like where we are right here, right now,” said Fields, one of the snappiest Jeff hosts in recent memory.

The Equity Jeff Awards recognizes union theatrical productions during the 2009/2010 season. The non-equity, or nonunion Jeffs, are presented in the spring.