Two local productions honored at state theater festival By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer 7/15/2006 Tulsa was well represented at the Oklahoma Community Theatre Association's recent play festival in Norman and will be again during regional competition in Louisiana next year. Theatre North and Heller Theatre shared top honors at the state festival, held July 6-9, for "Outstanding Production." The groups will go on to perform in the American Association of Community Theatre Region VI Festival in Alexandria, La., April 19-21, 2007, according to OCTA.

"Who Will Sing For Lena?" is one of two local plays to win an outstanding production award at a state theater festival. Vanessa Adams-Harris stars as a woman sent to the electric chair. Tulsa World file

"It's a privilege for Oklahoma to send two productions to AACT regionals, and it only happened because so many theaters from around the state made the effort to bring a production to OCTAFest," said Michael Jones, OCTA executive director.

Anthony Batchelder, Tulsa Area Community Theatre Alliance president, congratulated the groups.
"We are extremely proud to have these two truly talented groups as members of TACTA," Batchelder said in a release. "It really goes to show that Tulsa community theater delivers some of the finest theater here or anywhere else."

Ten productions were presented at the state festival at the University of Oklahoma.

Theatre North presented the one-woman show "Who Will Sing for Lena?" Written by Janice Liddell, the play was directed by Todd Murray and featured Vanessa Adams-Harris in the role of Lena Baker, the only woman executed in the Georgia electric chair. Baker, who died in 1945, was a black woman convicted of murdering her abusive white employer. She claimed he tried to kill her.

Heller Theatre presented Yas mina Reza's "The Unexpected Man," directed by Jenny Jackson. Charles Whitson and Liz Masters star in the play about two passengers on a train. The play spotlights their inner struggles to understand themselves and the stranger seated across the aisle.

Individual awards went to Adams-Harris and Masters for acting, Jackson for direction and Neil Fisher for lighting design for "Who Will Sing for Lena?"