Best Designer

Jason Nodler's Infernal Bridegroom Productions is still the most innovative and exciting theater company in town. A lot of its success goes to the inspired designers Nodler has been able to coerce into coming on board. Such is the case with his deliciously dark production of David Mamet's Edmond. It was designer Devlin Browning who made the Atomic Cafe's stage turn hellish under his dollops of voodoo yellow light. As framed by Browning's strange eye, Edmond's pathetic kicked-dog-white-man-as-victim story glimmered like some horrifying yet mesmerizing jewel, winking from a swamp of darkness. Browning filled the stage with pools of goopy light that were as much about Edmond's dead heart as they were about the seemingly endless capacity of darkness and half-light to hide the truth. All other theaters in town could take a lesson from Browning about the power of light and the muscle of darkness.