Eoghan Quinn's Bears in Space Takes Home Three 1st Irish Festival Awards
The 9th annual Origin’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival awards ceremony saw Eoghan Quinn’s Bears in Space, produced by Dublin’s Collapsing Horse and presented at 59E59 Theaters, take home three awards, with Honor Molloy’s Crackskull Row, produced in New York by the cell, picking up the awards for Best Direction and Best Production.
Hosted by the actress Carey Van Driest at The American Irish Historical Society the awards also recognized Sonya Kelly as Best Actress in How to Keep an Alien and Dermot Crowley for his performance in Brian Friel’s Afterplay which is currently scheduled to run through November 6 at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
The list of nominees is as follows, with winners in bold:
Best Actress
Sonya Kelly (How to Keep an Alien)
Antoinette LaVecchia (The Birds)
Helen McMillan (Dorothy of Nowhere)
Dearbhla Molloy (Afterplay)
Best Actor
Dermot Crowley (Afterplay)
Colin Lane (Crackskull Row)
Patrick O’Kane (Quietly)
Tim Ruddy (Appendage)
Best Director
Dan Colley (Bears in Space)
Stefan Dzeparoski (The Birds)
Jimmy Fay (Quietly)
Kira Simring (Crackskull Row)
Best Playwright
Sonya Kelly (How to Keep an Alien)
Honor Molloy (Crackskull Row)
Owen McCafferty (Quietly)
Eoghan Quinn (Bears in Space)
Best Design
Bears in Space
The Birds
Crackskull Row
Best Production
Bears in Space
Crackskull Row
How to Keep an Alien
Quietly
Bears in Space also received the Special Jury Prize on its ensemble cast, which included Quinn, Aaron Heffernan, Cameron Macauley, and Jack Gleeson.
In addition the Festival Fringe Award went to the cast and crew of Wilde at Home; the Bairbre Dowling Spirit of the Festival Award went to Jane McCarter, director of arts and culture at the New York Irish Center in Long Island City; and the Audience Choice Award went to Thomas Burns Scully for Dorothy of Nowhere.
This year's panel of judges includes Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch cultural observer Quentin Fottrell, Irish America Magazine editor and cofounder Patricia Harty, TheaterMania.com editor in chief Andy Lefkowitz, fashion executive Laurianne Listo, and Doug Reside, curator of the Theater Division at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.