Salisbury theatre groups took home 11 awards during the Metrolina Theatre Association’s annual award ceremony held Sunday at the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlotte.
And local actors nearly swept the acting categories, winning all but one of the awards given in this region.
St. Thomas Players’ “Arcadia” led the way with seven wins, including the top honor of outstanding production.
The show received a total of 15 nominations from the theatre association, the most in the region.
Chris Honsaker, who played Bernard Nightingale, nabbed the outstanding lead actor award and Len Clark won outstanding cameo for his role as Jellaby.
“Arcadia” was recognized for outstanding direction for work by David Pulliam, a theater professor at Catawba College. He also snagged the award for outstanding sound design.
“Arcadia is an extremely challenging piece, especially for a community theatre,” said Jennifer Hubbard, St. Thomas’ managing director. “David Pulliam was the right person for the job because of his breadth of knowledge and because of his good heart.”
Hubbard called Pulliam a “positive leader.”
“Everyone involved — cast and crew — was inspired to execute David’s vision, and we worked together as a team, which makes the awards and recognition the production has received all the more meaningful.”
Crew members Claudia Galup and Bethany Sinnott won for outstanding costume and properties design, respectively.
Piedmont Players Theatre scored three awards from its 22 nominations, a dozen of which were for “Spamalot” and the remaining for the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Color Purple. “
Tameka Brown was recognized as outstanding lead actress for her work as Celie in “The Color Purple.”
Daniel Breuer, who played Sir Lancelot in Monty Python’s “Spamalot,” won outstanding support actor.
“(We are) super excited for all the Salisbury winners, but of course extra proud of Tameka Brown and Daniel Breuer,” said Josh Wainwright, Piedmont Players’ marketing director. “Both are so talented and were the highlights of two amazing shows…
“I wish all of the actors could be recognized and appreciated, but if we were actually asked to pick a male and female actor to represent Piedmont Players we couldn’t have two better representatives than Tameka and Daniel.”
Piedmont Players’ Reid Leonard also took home the award for outstanding lighting design for “The Color Purple.” He is the group’s managing director and designer.
Catawba’s TyNia Brandon won honor of outstanding lead actress in the college division for her role as Ti Moune in “Once on this Island.”
The college received a total of 11 nods including those for supporting actor, direction, costume design, lighting design and choreography.
Despite three nominations, Lee Street Theatre did not win this year.
The group, which is described as Salisbury’s off-Broadway and fringe theatre, was nominated for Hubbard and Galup’s performances in “Love, Loss & What I Wore.”
Justin Dionne, Lee Street’s managing artistic director, also was up for outstanding properties design or “The Complete History of America (Abridged).”
Local theater groups were up for a total of 42 awards from the association, more than half of the 71 nominations for this region.
The Metrolina Theatre Association organized more than 85 peer nominators who attended 109 adjudicated shows, submitting thousands of nominations this year. They completed a preliminary ballot to select the award nominees and the final vote was certified by an independent accountant.

Contact reporter Sarah Campbell at 704-797-7683.
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