1995 YEAR IN REVIEW : From the Best, Brightest to the Worst, Tritest . . .

One man’s opinion . . . the best, the worst and the in-between:

Go Figure Award: To the tens of thousands of playgoers, opera fans and music lovers, who turned out in record numbers. Notwithstanding the county’s municipal bankruptcy, they made it a banner year for the major performing arts institutions.

Best New Play Bar None Award: To playwright Heather McDonald for “An Almost Holy Picture” at the La Jolla Playhouse south of the county line. Nothing was almost about that production--and the writing was made in heaven.

Fourth Time Around Award: To the Orange County Performing Arts Center for “Cats.” I suppose there was nothing morally reprehensible about bringing back Andrew Lloyd Webber’s chestnut for a fourth time. But you’d think all those arts-minded millionaires and corporate philanthropists would have had something better to do.

Show Him the Door Award: To Tommy Tune. He starred at the center in “Stage Door Charley,” only to have the toy dog at his feet steal the show (what little there was of it).

Hello, Carol! Award: To Carol Channing, of course. She appeared at the center in “Hello, Dolly!” the night after Broadway toasted her with a lifetime Tony Award. Oooooh.

Ed Sullivan Award: To “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” This Andrew Lloyd Webber chestnut came to the center, where it proceeded to fulfill director Steven Pimlott’s grand design: “We wanted something where a variety show meets the Bible.”

Bad Pasta Award: To the creators of the national touring company of “West Side Story.” It came to the center and turned a classic into a wet noodle.

Psycho Musical Award: To Leslie Bricusse and Frank Wildhorn. Their musical, “Jekyll & Hyde,” came to the center on its national tour and didn’t scare a soul--not at the box office, anyway. The take was huge.

Breath of Fresh Air Award: To Tom Tomlinson, president of the center. Notwithstanding the awards above, he brought a much-needed sense of reality to the center.

First And Only Award: To ethnically diverse South Coast Repertory. It took top honors in the 1995 Theater Awards given by the NAACP, Beverly Hills/Hollywood chapter for the 1994 production of Cheryl West’s “Jar the Floor.” Did the NAACP know that SCR had never before staged a play by a black writer in 30 years and roughly 300 productions?

Frugality and Modesty Award: To David Emmes and Martin Benson, cofounders of SCR. They declined to join Theater/L.A., unswayed by the fact that the organization gave them its lifetime achievement award.

Veddy Veddy Award: To Jean Stapleton and Nicholas Hormann. They were British all the way in SCR’s production of “Blithe Spirit.”

Low Flying Award: To playwright Nicky Silver, theater’s latest enfant terrible. Even with a fine production at SCR, his made-for-suburbia sendup, “Raised in Captivity,” barely got off the ground.

Dysfunctional Comedy Award: To playwright David Hollander, hands down. His “The Things You Don’t Know,” centering on a latchkey kid who grows up into a latchkey adult, was the year’s best example of sitcom theater.

Words of Wisdom Award: To Newport Beach playwright Cecilia Fannon, of “Green Icebergs” fame, who said at the Women Authors Festival in Irvine: “If you have to be in control, maybe you shouldn’t be a playwright.”

Famous First Words Award: To Irvine’s Will Ferrell. On being chosen for the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” he said: “I never got a sense of why they picked me. I’m either very talented or they’re in trouble.”

Famous Last Words Award: To Ferrell again. For his reaction to the SNL cast’s reaction to his hometown: “When I tell them I’m from Orange County, there’s no reaction. When I tell them I’m from Irvine, they say, ‘Gee. Never heard of it.’ I don’t know what’s wrong with these people.”

Carpe Diem Award: To Noel Coward. His “Private Lives,” which played all over the county, received a delicious production at the Alternative Repertory Theatre. Especially appreciated was the line: “Come and kiss me, darling, before your body rots and worms pop in and out of your eye sockets.”

Lads and Lasses Award: To Fullerton Civic Light Opera. Its enchanting production of “Brigadoon” brought us three singer-actors who deserve to become stars: baritone Robert Patteri, soprano Mardi Robins and Irish tenor Lance Callahan.

Longest Run Award: To the Laguna Playhouse, which celebrated its 75th anniversary season. May it last another 75 years, maybe with its projected second theater up and running.

Blue Collar Award: To the musical “Working” at the Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater. The production was show-biz at its best and gave us human nature without the usual bromides.

Big Shtick Award: To Andrew Barnicle, artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse and his wife, Sarah. Their freewheeling translation of “The Liar,” a slapstick update of Goldoni’s 18th century Venetian farce, took chutzpah.

Shtick and Woof Award: To UC Irvine’s Eli Simon, who heads the acting program. He formed a well-received commedia dell’arte improv troupe called “Give Your Dog a Bone.”

Great Casting Award: To the UCI theater department for its successful showcase in New York, where the department’s top students wowed dozens of talent agents and got umpteen callbacks.

Bronze It Award: To Benjamin Stewart. His epic dramatization of the Bard’s “Venus and Adonis” at Shakespeare Orange County was a show for the ages and should have been bronzed.

Silly Willy Award: To SOC. Its production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” had more twinkle dust than “Peter Pan,” a Spock-meets-Darth Vader Oberon in pointy ears and a Jerry Lewis-style Demetrius in goofy bloomers.

Tennis Anyone Award: To Ron Campbell, who turned murder into sport as a nicely demented Richard in SOC’s “Richard III.”

Keep It Going Award: To Terry Gunkel and the Vanguard Theatre Ensemble. They have gone from zero to 60 in a nanosecond, while turning out consistently thoughtful productions.

Another Keep It Going Award: To Kevin Cochran and Charles Johansen. They not only got the Grove Theater Center going but sent out the most pop-art invitations in town.

Bless Us, Please, Award: To the Musical Theatre Company’s Sondheim revue, “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” at the Gem Theatre. It opened with an appeal to the theater gods, “You who sit up there in stern judgment / Smile on us / You who look down on actors / And who doesn’t? . . . Bless our play and smile.” And so we do.

Truth in Celebrity Award: To Hollywood biographer Arthur Marx. He came to the Curtis Theatre in Brea to reminisce about his father, Groucho. “Celebrities never tell the truth,” he said before the show--including Groucho, who once tried to stop publication of Arthur’s intimate portrait of him, “Life With Groucho.”

I-Yam-What-I-Yam Award: To Michael Moriarty. He wrote, directed and starred in “A Special Providence” at the La Mirada Theatre just north of the county line because, he claimed, his conservative views made him anathema in Hollywood.

No Deal Award: To Loretta Swit. She brought her one-woman “Shirley Valentine” tour to Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton. Before she would give an interview in The Times, Swit and her publicists, claiming she’d been “abused by the press,” demanded a signed agreement prohibiting any reference to “MASH” or her role as Hot Lips Houlihan.

Be Kind to Plants and Animals Award: To performance artist Rachel Rosenthal. She brought her ecological theater monologues to the Huntington Beach Art Center. “The overriding theme in all my pieces is always the same,” she said.

Standing O Award: To Theodore Bikel, who starred as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. When audiences jump to their feet to cheer automatically, they lay an egg with discriminating performers. Such curtain calls, he said, are “standing ovulations.”

Inspiring Award: To Irvine’s Mary and Henry Kress, survivors of Auschwitz. They were technical advisors for the Jewish Community Center’s production of the Holocaust drama “Playing for Time” in Costa Mesa.

Calling It Curtains Award: To Tony Reverditto, who closed his Way Off Broadway Playhouse, a basement theater in Santa Ana, after eight seasons against the odds.

In memoriam: Betsy Paul, long regarded with her husband David as “the Lunts of Laguna,” who died in Laguna Beach. Friends paid tribute to her “commanding presence” and “indomitable spirit.” She appeared at the Laguna Playhouse for the first time in 1938.