Dawwwwww! (From the 2016 Ostranders).
Laughter, tears, goosebumps, the uncontrollable urge to dance, and the undeniable need to stretch: This year’s Ostrander Awards packed in an entire theater season’s worth of feels, including big surprises and the occasional jot of dismay. This year’s event boasted more (and better) musical numbers, with a bigger band and better production than Ostranders past.
What began in 1984 as a simple act of handing out play prizes, is now a proper mini-festival where theater makers and theater lovers can spend a few more hours with favorite shows from the past season, and sample the best work being created by top artists working in Memphis area playhouses. This year’s audience was treated to heartfelt, heart-stopping, rafter-shattering samples from Falsettos, Dream Girls, The Wild Party, Fun Home, Violet, Shrek, Once, and The Drowsy Chaperone.
A memorial for local performing artists who’ve died in the past year turned the crowd into a sobbing mess.
Marriage Proposal, Memorials Steal the Show: Ostranders, 2018
This year’s host-free version of the Ostrander Awards took several tentative steps forwards in terms of packing in fun content and letting Memphis’ theatrical talent really show off for itself. People who do shows don’t always get to see shows, and it’s hard to overstate the revival-like affirmation of being in room filled with actors, singers, hoofers, writers, and musicians all together for the first time hearing Breyannah Tillman cut loose with “And I Am Telling You,” or falling into a stunned hush when the cast of Once hammers out a ragged Irish ballad. But between the singing and all the dancing, and the surprises, this was still a show desperately in need of an editor.
Dreamgirls at the Ostranders
C‘mon, folks! Excluding a modest acceptance address by lifetime achievement honoree Tony Isbell, every speech and award citation would have improved with distillation. Actors may love a meaty monologue, it’s true, but when it comes to telling this night’s story well, in a reasonable amount of time, a deft sentence or two composed for speakers rather than readers, is more effective than detailed paragraphs rattled off imprecisely at a breakneck pace.
I’ll attempt an example.
The 2018 Ostrander for “Oh No You Didn’t” goes to Chase Ring. Ring upstaged everybody (including lifetime achievement honoree Tony Isbell!), when he took a knee and proposed to co-presenter, Ellen Inghram. Congratulations and raised eyebrows are both in order. 
Scene stealer! Yeah, it’s a terrible, blurry photo, but it’s the best shot I got of Chase Ring proposing to co-presenter Ellen Inghram on the Orpheum stage at the 2018 Ostrander Awards.
I‘m kidding about the raised eyebrows part. And the part about giving Chase the business for being a spotlight-hogging scene thief. Mostly. But congratulations really are in order. It was lovely, and an awesome moment to share with a community that’s experienced a good deal of crisis and loss in the past 12 months. Also, any citation longer than the one above my super blurry photo of Chase and Ellen showing us what perfect storybook romance looks like, is probably too much.
Members of the cast of Once offer a lesson in ensemble performance.
I‘ll have one last report about this year’s Ostrander awards in the October issue of Memphis magazine. Until then — and until next year for Intermission Impossible’s annual Ostrander coverage — I’ll leave you with this picture of Justin Asher loving life. In Shrek ears. 
Shrek & Donkey.