Nods to some of academia’s most admirable moments this season

Awards season hasn't quite yet left.

Thursday, I paid tribute to the best of local theater. Since colleges and magnet high schools have different sorts of budgets and talent pools, I left them out of competition. Today, it's their turn.

Here's a highly opinionated, incomplete list of some of academia's most admirable moments during the 2007-08 season:

• Rayme Cornell in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' "Doubt" (directed by Michael Lugering in May) made us understand why her loving character preferred not to know if her grade-school son was being sexually molested by a priest. Cornell made her scene rife with conflict and logic, so that we admired her, even as we squirmed at what she was saying.

• Axis de Bruyin's smoky, sensuous lighting for the College of Southern Nevada's "Gum" (directed in November by Sarah O'Connell) gave a melodramatic hue to events that seemed to appear through the filtered lens of memory. The result was surprisingly stunning images in a small, black-box space.

• Jayce Johnson's devilish, snake-oil salesman of a performance as Pirelli, the puffed-up barber in "Sweeney Todd" at the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts in November (directed by Glenn Edwards) was so flamboyant and yet nuanced that you couldn't help but giggle every time he appeared.

• Drew Lynch dressed in tight "Boy Toy" shorts in Las Vegas Academy's April "Execution of Justice" (directed by Robert Connor), and then played a second role of a somber judge. Lynch gave his judge an air of unquestionable authority that you don't expect from such a young actor. He's a remarkably versatile talent.

• Tammy Pessagno's choreography for Las Vegas Academy's February production of "Cats" (directed by Glenn Edwards and Pessagno) pumped-up the big numbers with the dazzle they needed, while successfully communicating, with small touches, the unique movements of the feline animal.

• Aaron Tuttle's stylized direction for the CSN's February "The Hairy Ape" made us feel in our gut what it was like to be an outsider. With seamen resembling cavemen in movement and attitude, and the engine room a series of zoo cages (designed by Gary Carton), we understood the horror of rejection when one of the men attempted to make a life for himself in society. Tuttle pulled out of Kris Pruett his most disciplined, affecting performance. Pruett internalized his postures, so that we never felt he was doing an impersonation. It was moving to see him become more "humanlike" as the play progressed.

• UNLV's short-play festival in April featured MFA-candidate Jeremiah Munsey's funny, touching and very Vegas-y "A Duel of Kings" (directed by Mandy Peters), about two crime investigators trying to figure out why two Elvis impersonators have apparently killed each other. The script was rich in wit and observation.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.