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Home > Blogs > Arts and Entertainment > Archives > 2009 > August > 16 > Entry
DayTonys cap 2008-9 stage season
Gil Martin and Blake Senseman were inducted into the Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame and more than 100 honors were presented during the annual DayTony Awards Sunday, Aug. 16, at the Dayton Marriott.
Six area productions were voted the best of the 2008-9 season: “Doubt” and “Ethel Waters: His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” both by The Human Race Theatre Company; “Tuesdays With Morrie,” by Cedarville University; “The Paris Letter,” by the Dayton Theatre Guild; “Assassins,” by Beavercreek Community Theatre, and “The Cemetery Club,” by the Young at Heart Players.
The awards — certificates of merit and medallions for excellence in design and technology, performance and directing — were based on balloting by adjudicators from each member theater after attending shows by other member companies.
Martin, best known locally for almost four decades of well chosen performances at the Dayton Theatre Guild, is also the composer of 400 pieces of music. Seen most recently in the leading role of “The Paris Letter,” his career has also included national professional tours in Broadway musicals and off-Broadway performances.
Introduced by Dayton actor and director Michael Boyd, Martin said he learned his stage craft doing summer theater in Sturbridge, Mass., on a stage quite similar to the one the Theatre Guild used for years on Salem Ave. His first show there was “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” staged by Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame member Ken Hardin.
“I’ve had a fine run in Dayton,” he said, before closing with a poem by Noel Coward called “The Boy Actor.”
Senseman, an actor and designer primarily at the Theatre Guild as well, has also directed, stage managed and orchestrated the props at many productions. His design for a past production of “A Little Night Music” at the Dayton Playhouse is still remembered. Everything on stage, save for a deck of tarot cards, was blue.
The Tipp City resident was introduced by Carol Finley, who said Senseman has been known to design and create a finished set on just $40 — “the price of two cans of paint. He can transform nothing into something real and wonderful.”
Senseman said his first stage experience came as a third-grader — “as the second letter ‘i’ in the word Thanksgiving.”
Past Hall of Fame inductees recognized for their work on productions last season were Kevin Moore, Scott Stoney, Fred Blumenthal, Terry Stump, Jim Lockwood and Greg Smith, who served as master of ceremonies.
Presenters included theater representative Barbara Mays Lurie, actor Amy Brooks, Sinclair Community College and Clark State University representatives Patti Celek and Theresa Abshear, Dr. Robert Clements of Cedarville University, Human Race artistic director Marsha Hanna, and actor-choreographer Dodie Lockwood.
Hanna said that because The Human Race is the lone professional theater up for DayTony recognition, it will voluntarily withdraw from eligibility for awards starting next year, but will remain a member and will still make tickets available to DayTonys adjudicators for each production.
More information about the Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame and the DayTonys is available at www.daytonys.org.
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