Jay Croft » Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Awards

What I Did: Week Ending 2008-09-21

jcroft — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Of the people I was taking to the MAT Awards: 1 is sick, the other “has nothing to wear”. . Still should be a fun night. #
Well. I did not win a MAT Award. I will blog all about it tomorrow. #
Journal Entry: Did not win a MAT award http://tinyurl.com/5jg5x4 #
Went a little overboard with my last blog entry on Tags. What a way to discover there are issues with you style sheet. #

Did not win a MAT award

jcroft — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:24:29 +0000

The Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Awards ceremony last night was a lot of fun, despite not winning. Got to see a lot of people I had been in other plays with. Still, I am very please to have been nominated. There were, I think, 27 productions reviewed and over 500 people involved with those productions.

Of the two plays that I was in that were judged, Breaking Legs and A Christmas Story, there we 10 nominations and the winners were:

Wally Hinds – Best Set Design for a Play – Breaking Legs

Murray Mann – Best Sound Design for a Play – A Christmas Story

Martha Kennedy – Best Minor Supporting Actress in a Play – Miss Shields – A Christmas Story

People I have been with in other plays who won:

Barbara McFann – Major Supporting Actress in a Play – Mrs. Baker – Come Blow Your Horn at ACT1 Theater.

David Shelton with Rob Roy Hardie and Kelly Lane – Best Sound Design for a Musical – Little Shop of Horrors at Kudzu Playhouse.

What I Did On 2008-09-14

jcroft — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Of the people I was taking to the MAT Awards: 1 is sick, the other “has nothing to wear”. . Still should be a fun night. #

What I Did On 2008-09-13

jcroft — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Had a fun evening with the cast of Streetcar. This group does a lot together. #
Must start day. Lots to do. Pickup tux, dry cleaners, haircut, PetSmart. Tmro are the MAT Awards. Have an entourage going with me to awards. #
Add to the to do list: study lines. We are off book on Tuesday for Streetcar. And yet another website makeover. Finally something I like! #
OK. done with the out of the house errands. Now to finish updates to web redesign. #
For what it’s worth, the redesigned acting site is up. The blog will take a while to convert. There are some tweaks to make also, but… #
And some IE tweaks. I really do hope IE8 works better than it’s predecessors. #
I am not totally happy with the javascript I am using, but it will do for now. #

What I Did On 2008-08-21

jcroft — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:59:59 +0000

The MAT Awards are less than a month away. Need to rent a tux. I seem to recall from decades back, rentals took a while to arrive. #
The Wife wants to wear this: http://tinyurl.com/5hw7pw I suppose my tux needs to be equally goth. #
I do not want to write test cases today. Maybe a little trance from di.fm will motivate me. #
Good lunch, Markus Schulz on DI.FM and Armin Van Buuren after after that. Work, at the moment, is good. #
Yikes. I have crashed mentally. Some would say “so what has changed”. I am out of any Tea that I want to drink. #
Over the past few weeks, received sympathy cards on the loss of my cat Einstein. A nice one came from the vet and office who also loved him. #
Still miss my Einstein. The Wife is traveling and stopped at a place we stopped at on our last vacation, when we took Einstein with us. #
The Wife, and probably me as well, is planning on getting a tattoo of Einstein. I would like to have all my cats tattoo’d. On me not them. #
Anyone know of a good tattoo artist who can do animals. Pref Atlanta area. #

Nominated for a MAT Award

jcroft — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:58:01 +0000

The 2008 Metropolitan Atlanta Theater Awards nominations were announced yesterday. The two plays that I was in and reviewed were Breaking Legs and A Christmas Story.

Breaking Legs at Kudzu Playhouse
Best Major Supporting Actor in a Play – Chris Arapoglou – “Mike Francisco”
Best Minor Supporting Actor in a Play – Jay Croft – “Frankie Salvucci”
Best Set Design in a Play – Wally Hinds

A Christmas Story at ACT1 Theater
Best Minor Supporting Actress in a Play – Martha Kennedy – “Miss Shields”
Youth Award in a Play – Bobby Cookson – “Ralphie Parker”
Youth Award in a Play – Andrew Hudson – “Randy Parker”
Best Costume Design in a Play – Anne Voller
Best Set Design in a Play – Rich Vandever & Gayley Crockett
Best Lighting Design in a Play – Murray Mann
Best Sound Design in a Play – Murray Mann

Update for Octorber 2007

jcroft — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:01:39 +0000

Since August 14th: Ramona Quimby has started and we are actually approaching our last weekend; I started a new job; And landed a lead role in A Christmas Story.

Ramona Quimby opened in Kudzu Playhouse’s old location but moved to Kudzu’s Stage 2 on September 22nd. I spent every night, and all of Friday the week before and around Saturday’s two shows building out the set and dressing room. I was exhausted after that week and skipped acting class that Monday night, more on that in a minute.

I also picked up another role in Ramona Quimby, that of MR FROST. Paul Komorner who was MR FROST always had a conflict on Sundays and Saturday nights. He was also in Bermuda Avenue Triangle on Kudzu’s Stage 1. MR FROST was being played by Jerry Harlow in the old theatre where he could escape from the tech booth for just long to do the 30 second part.

I purchased from a Halloween shop, a hat, Elvis glasses and beard to alter my appearance. With an overcoat I look completely different. One cast member said I looked like Hank Williams, Jr. I also use a Texas twang for a voice.

I started taking an acting class again with Chris Cole Harris. She called and said she was trying to get a class together and at the time I was not doing anything other than Ramona Quimby, so I said why not. The class started on September 17th and after a very long week, decided to skip the night of the 24th.

I also started a new job on September 4th.

Every year, Kudzu does A Christmas Carol for the Holiday Season. Last year, I was light and sound tech and had such fun with the 120+ light and sound queues that I wanted to do it again this year. I went as far as telling Wally and Jenny that I wanted to be tech again.

Well, it turns out that Act 1 Theatre in Alpharetta did not fill the roles of RALPH (Narrator) or THE OLD MAN (RALPHIE/RALPH’s dad) in A Christmas Story. I was recommended by several people to Rebecca Coffee who is directing the show. Working with Rebecca I scheduled an audition on Thursday, September 26th for ether role. Rebecca decided to cast me as RALPH.

If you remember from the movie by the same name, there is a narration all throughout the movie. The Narrator is the grown up RALPHIE. For the play, the narrator (RALPH) is on stage for most of the play.

I have finally landed a lead and I am very excited about the play. And a little nervous, there are a bunch of lines. Oh and this play is also being reviewed for the Metro Atlanta Theatre Awards.

Breaking Legs first weekend

jcroft — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:03:36 +0000

Our lead was flying back to Atlanta on Friday. He was on stand by for an earlier flight but could not get a seat and then his scheduled flight was delayed by an hour. He landed at 6:30 and did not make it to the theatre until 8:30. South Atlanta to Roswell is a very long way.

So we started 30 minutes late and everybody had trouble with lines, but we survived. For Friday and Saturday most of the cast considered the plays as dress rehearsals with no calling for lines. And I believe that we were reviewed by a MAT Judge on Saturday.

Sunday’s audience was great. The laughed a lot. The cast had worked out tweaks that made the show better.

Not a bad weekend considering that we only had 3 or 4 rehearsals in July.

MAT Awards 2008 Season

jcroft — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:03:06 +0000

The Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards’ 2008 Season is underway. Kudzu Playhouse has submitted two plays for review. One of them is Breaking Legs. Looking over the award categories, I think BEST ACTOR IN A MINOR SUPPORTING ROLE, PLAY is what I would be looking at in the individual categories. That would be cool.

We have a great cast and I would hope we could get BEST OVERALL PERFORMANCE OF A PLAY.

Take a look at MATs website for more details.