Best of the Suncoast 2009: Best theater director
October 20th, 2009 by CL Staff in Best of the Suncoast 2009
BEST DIRECTOR
Michael Donald Edwards, Asolo Rep
Edwards, who is also producing artistic director at Asolo Rep, excelled twice during the last season, with his work on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and also on Jason Wells’ Perfect Mendacity. In the first play, he gave us a wonderfully imagined “concept” piece, in which Sicily was a land of elegant modernity and Bohemia was a hippie heaven owing a lot to Haight-Ashbury. Then, in Mendacity, Edwards provided a super-efficient American mindscape, in which technology and corporate efficiency masked a murderous foreign policy. Some directors shine with their ingenuity and unpredictability; others can be counted on to be faithful to a text. Edwards can manage both with delightful results.
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