Old Globe Captures Top S.D. Critics Circle Awards : Theater: La Jolla Playhouse takes four awards, including one for best new play.

“Hamlet,” the most nominated play of the seventh annual San Diego Critics Circle Awards, picked up best production and direction honors for the Old Globe Theatre on Monday at Tin Pan Alley in Hillcrest.

The Old Globe won six of a possible 16 awards in 15 categories, including one for best road show for its presentation of the Maly Theatre of Leningrad’s “Brothers and Sisters” as part of the 1989 Soviet Arts Festival. The Old Globe also won best musical for “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.”

The La Jolla Playhouse, with half the length of the Globe’s season, followed with four awards for four shows, including a best new play award for Keith Reddin’s “Life During Wartime.”

The San Diego Repertory Theatre and the Bowery Theatre picked up two awards apiece; the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company and Lamb’s Players Theatre garnered one each.

John Fleck, one of the four performance artists who had grants rescinded by National Endowment for the Arts chairman John E. Frohnmayer last year, took the best actor award for his blackly funny portrayal of the granny in “The Granny” at the Old Globe Theatre.

Erin Kelly, who had been nominated for best actress for “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” at the Bowery Theatre in 1988, won this time for “Teibele and Her Demon,” one of the more popular productions in Bowery’s last season.

The best supporting actor award went to Jon Matthews for his role as the gay roommate in “Burn This” at the San Diego Rep. Priscilla Allen was named best supporting actress for her work as the psychic in the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company production of “Blithe Spirit.”

The San Diego Critics Circle also handed out two special awards for the voting period, which extended from October, 1989, to December, 1990. One went to the UCSD Division of Arts and Humanities “for outstanding achievement in helping to bring to San Diego two vital and significant international theater conferences.” The conferences were “The Classics in Contemporary Theatre,” produced by the UCSD Department of Theatre in cooperation with the La Jolla Playhouse and coordinated by symposium director Jim Carmody, and “Cultural Diversity in the American Theatre: Moving Towards the 21st Century,” produced by the Contemporary Black Arts program and coordinated by Floyd Gaffney.

The other special award went to the city of San Diego “for outstanding achievement in presenting the 1989 Soviet Arts Festival with special appreciation for bringing us Leningrad’s Maly Theatre.”

The 13 voting members of the circle are: Frances L. Bardacke, San Diego Magazine; Don Braunagel, Variety and Daily Variety; Nancy Churnin, Los Angeles Times; Carol Davis, San Diego Jewish Times; William E. Fark, Escondido Times Advocate; Welton Jones, San Diego Union; Robert Korbett, Uptown Publications and Revolt in Style; Pat Launer, San Diego Tribune; Ruth Lepper, Chula Vista Star-News; Patricia Morris, West Coast Community Newspapers; Christopher Schneider, La Jolla Light; Eileen Sondak, Heritage Press; George Weinberg-Harter, Drama-Logue.

A complete list of award winners:

BEST PRODUCTION: “Hamlet,” Old Globe Theatre.

BEST MUSICAL: “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” Old Globe Theatre.

BEST DIRECTION: Jack O’Brien, “Hamlet,” Old Globe Theatre.

BEST ACTRESS: Erin Kelly, “Teibele and Her Demon,” Bowery Theatre.

BEST ACTOR: John Fleck, “The Granny,” Old Globe Theatre.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jon Matthews, “Burn This,” San Diego Repertory Theatre.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Priscilla Allen, “Blithe Spirit,” Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company.

BEST NEW PLAY: “Life During Wartime,” by Keith Reddin, La Jolla Playhouse.

BEST SCORE: Des McAnuff-Michael Roth, “Twelfth Night,” La Jolla Playhouse.

BEST SCENIC DESIGN: Beeb Salzer, “Teibele and Her Demon,” Bowery Theatre.

BEST COSTUMES: Jeanne Reith, “An Ideal Husband,” Lamb’s Players Theatre.

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN: Brenda Berry, “Slingshot,” San Diego Repertory Theatre, and David F. Segal, “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” Old Globe Theatre.

BEST SOUND DESIGN: James LeBrecht, “My Children! My Africa!,” La Jolla Playhouse.

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY: Wayne Cilento, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” La Jolla Playhouse.

BEST ROAD SHOW: “Brothers and Sisters,” Maly Theatre of Leningrad, produced at the Old Globe Theatre.