This year there were fifty-nine nominees in fourteen categories, all of whom are outstanding in their fields. Lara Foot-Newton's groundbreaking production Karoo Moose netted four top Fleur du Cap Awards. This Baxter production won the Best Performance by an Actress Category (Chuma Sopotela), Best Director (Foot Newton), Best New Indigenous Play and the piece also won a Best Prop Design award for Henning Lüdeke and Koos Marais.
The versatile Alan Committie won the strongly contested Best Performance by an Actor category for his role as "Rozencrantz" in the Little Theatre's production of Tom Stoppard's tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Committie was also the MC for the evening.
Johann Nel won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role as Paul Hansen in the Afrikaans translation of the Danish family epic Festen by Bo Hansen, Thomas Vinterberg and Morgens Rukov.
Claire Berlein won the Best Supporting Actress category for her portrayal of "The Widow" in Geoffrey Hyland's innovative production of Howard Barker's Women Beware Women.
Peter Hayes' nuanced and moving portrayal of "Martin Moran" in the autobiographical piece The Tricky Part won him the Best Performance in a One Hander award. Veteran performer, Terry Fortune, won the Best Performance in a Musical Category for his work in The Kramer Petersen Songbook.
Claire Watling and Godfrey Johnson shared the Best Performance in a Revue or Cabaret category for their much-lauded Kissed by Brel, directed by Geoffrey Hyland. Luke Ellenbogen won the Best Lighting award for his work on the same production.
Marthinus Basson won the award for Best Costumes for Die Storm, the Afrikaans translation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which he also directed.
Michael Mitchell won the award for the Best Set for Beethoven, in Raptus and Emily Child of UCT was named as the Most Promising Student and the well loved "petite lady" of theatre, Sybil Sands, won the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Peoples Choice Award, where theatregoers had the opportunity to vote for their favourite production online at
www.capetheatre.co.za, was won by EurAfrica, a satirical two-hander, starring Lucy Heavens and Sarah Jane Scott and directed by Ilana Wetzler.
Distell Arts & Culture manages and works with a panel of judges chaired by a non-voting chairman, Mr. Conrad Sidego, a former ambassador and journalist. The rest of the team is made up largely of local critics, journalists, writers and drama educators. The judging panel for the 2007 productions was Danie Botha, Dr. Beverley Brommert, Len Ashton, Derek Wilson, Wilhelm Snyman, Marianne Thamm, Brent Meersman, Denise Bester, Herman van der Westhuizen and Peter Tromp. Distell is represented by Irma Albers, Arts & Culture Controller and organizer of the Fleur du Cap awards.
Says Ms. Albers: "Cape Town is increasingly on the cutting edge of innovative theatre and the City continues to witness the emergence of exciting new talent both on the acting and directorial fronts."
As always, the proceeds from the evening will go towards the development of theatre in the Western Cape. The next Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards event will be held at Artscape Theatre in March 2009. For more detail on the awards and the theatre scene in Cape Town visit:
www.capetheatre.co.za.
The full list of winners is as follows