Veteran actors, rising talent honored at Atlanta professional theater awards
This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
The Suzi Bass Awards, which recognize the best work in Atlanta professional theater, celebrated their 20th year this week with a ceremony at Variety Playhouse hosted by past winners Enoch King and Bethany Anne Lind.
Theatrical Outfit’s productions of “Young John Lewis” and “The Lehman Trilogy” won the season’s Outstanding Musical and Play awards, respectively, at Monday’s ceremony, respectively. “Milo Imagines the World,” produced by the Alliance Theatre, won Outstanding Production of Theatre for Young Audiences.
A musical depicting the early life of the Civil Rights leader and Georgia politician, “Young John Lewis” received five awards in total, including Outstanding Social Justice Production and Outstanding Principal Performer in a Musical for Michael Bahsil.
Playing the title character was Bahsil’s first professional acting job, he said during his acceptance speech.
“Like John Lewis, we must do everything we can to make sure our community is taken care of in these times,” he said.
The other winner for Outstanding Principal Performer in a Musical was Hayden Rowe, who played the Emcee in “Cabaret” at Actor’s Express.
The two winners of the Musical Supporting Acting prizes were Mary Lynn Owen for “Cabaret” and Frankie Marasa 5th for the Aurora Theatre production of “Waitress,” which won five total prizes.
In her speech, Owen was ecstatic.
“You have taken my breath away,” she said. “I hadn’t been in a musical since President Carter was in office.”
The winners for Outstanding Principal Performer in a Play were veteran Atlanta actors Carolyn Cook and Tess Malis Kincaid.
Cook was recognized for Horizon Theatre’s one-woman show “I Carry Your Heart with Me.”
“There is no such thing as a one-person show,” she said before thanking the crew and staff at Horizon. She also paid tribute to the Vietnam veterans who shared their stories with her during the play’s run.
Kincaid played Sister Aloysius in “Doubt” at Actor’s Express, which also won a Supporting Actor prize for Tiffany Denise Hobbs, who appears in one searing scene as the mother of a boy who may have been abused by a priest.
Hobbs said in her speech that the role intimidated her.
“It’s one scene,” she said in her speech. “I only had one chance to get her right.”
Cara Mantella also won a prize for her featured performance in Stage Door Theatre’s “Cry It Out.”
In her speech, she noted that she also started in Atlanta 20 years ago.
“I came here to be closer to my family,” she said. “And here in Atlanta, I was given a theater family that just keeps growing.”
Ensemble performance awards were given to the casts of “The African Company Presents ‘Richard III,’” produced by Atlanta Shakespeare Company; “Winter Wonderettes,” produced at ART Station; and “Petite Rouge” at Synchronicity Theatre.
“Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote” at the Center for Puppetry Arts won Outstanding New Work for Young Audiences. “The Reservoir” at Alliance Theatre was named Outstanding World Premiere. And the playwriting award went to Amina S. McIntyre for Out of Hand’s “How to Make a Home.”
“Go and hug your local playwrights,” McIntyre said in her speech. “We always need it.”
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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in the Guardian. His debut novel, “Impacted,” was published by the Story Plant.
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