‘Miss Saigon’ at Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities at the top of Ovation nominations

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

It’s always risky to keep award nominations a secret for too long, because unless we’re talking the Academy Awards or the Emmys or an event that promises really good shrimp, people who don’t think they’re going to be nominated for anything tend not to show up.

In fact, we were told Monday afternoon that Stephanie E. Coltrin, artistic director of CIvic Light Opera of South Bay Cities, wasn’t planning to attend Monday evening’s nominations ceremony for the 2008 Ovation Awards until she got a call from LA Stage Alliance -- which oversees the annual peer-judged awards recognizing excellence in California theater -- strongly encouraging her to be there.

That told Coltrin that Civic Light Opera might have won something -- and by the time she and the company read this, they’ll all know that the company has netted more Ovation nominations than anyone else --11-- for a single production for its presentation of ‘Miss Saigon.’

Other big nominees include ‘All Shook Up’ at Musical Theatre West (10 nominations) and two productions from Cabrillo Music Theatre: ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ (nine) and ‘Singin’ In the Rain’ (nine).

Other notable nominations -- which we will arbitrarily define as shows that won more than five nods -- are Black Dahlia Theatre’s ‘Secrets of the Trade’ and ‘The Quality of Life’ at the Geffen Playhouse, which each got six.

For more, visit the LA Theatre Alliance website.

-- Diane Haithman