It has been a season of powerful theater crammed with ultra-outstanding performances - some of which are guaranteed to garner award nominations.
Oscar winner, Tony nom and Drama Desk winner Estelle Parsons in Good People, Tony nom Lorraine Serabian [chorus leader in the original Zorba], in her return to the boards after much too long an absence, as Mother in Marvell Rep's Blood Wedding; Julie Halston of Divine Sister; Lombardi's unsung Judith Light; Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy; Brian Bedford, brilliantly directed, in The Importance of Being Earnest as Lady Bracknell; Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin, Elizabeth Marvel and Thomas Sadoski, Other Desert Cities; and, going back a ways, the entire ensemble cast of The Scottsboro Boys.
Most recently heating up the stage are Robin Williams in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo; Mark Rylance, not only mindbogglingly brilliant in Jerusalem but only weeks after delivering the monologue of monologues in La Bête; John Larroquette in How to Succeed in Business...; and Josh Gad as Book of Mormon's Elder Cunningham.
Then there's Sister Act's Sarah Bolt channeling Kathy Najimy for her delicious Sister Mary Patrick; Evan Jonigkeit as a gay, drug-addled junkie in the short-lived High; Karen Mason belting to the rafters in Wonderland [and not merely heard over the over- amplification but able to enunciate every word so we understand what she's singing]; the star-making performance by Elizabeth Rodriquez in The Motherfucker with the Hat; and, in the last show of the season to open in time to qualify for award nominations, Lewis J. Stadlen and Chip Zien in The People in the Picture.
