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james and the giant honor

We can barely contain our theater-geek glee over at the CP headquarters: James Sugg, reigning soundmaster of Pig Iron Theatre Co., has won a 2009 OBIE Award for his performance in Chekhov Lizardbrain.

Sugg accepted his Village Voice-sponsored OBIE — think of it as an off-Broadway Tony Award — last night at Webster Hall in New York City, with his Pig Iron compatriots by his side. This is big news for the Philly theater community, who is far more used to hearing Sugg than seeing him onstage.

The opera-trained sound designer who hails from Tennessee was hired by Pig Iron back in 1997 as musical director/sound effects specialist for Gentlemen Volunteers, for which he won his first Barrymore for Outstanding Sound Design. (He's stacked up three more in the ensuing decade.) Sugg's secured his all-star status in this city, writing original music — for 1812 Productions' Cherry Bomb, most recently — and developing superb acting chops.

Here's what Mark Cofta had to say about Chekhov Lizardbrain, which premiered here in 2007 and went on to the Ohio Theatre in NYC in 2008:

We're told that Chekhov Lizardbrain was created through improvisation by director Dan Rothenberg and performers Quinn Bauriedel, Dito van Reigersberg, Geoff Sobell and James Sugg. We're told, also, that it's based on Paul D. MacLean's "Three Brain" theory (our heads contain what resemble the brains of lizards and dogs as well as the uniquely human neocortex) with inspiration from Anton Chekhov (a doctor as well as a writer) and autistic author Temple Grandin.

What emerges is distinctly Pig Iron — physical and funny, moments of startling visual clarity and emotional intensity, not much linear story — yet very different from their previous creations. Chekhov Lizardbrain is narrated by a character of the same name, played dourly by Sugg (imagine Garrison Keillor on downers), a pitchman who promises to "shock, awe and arouse" us, to "put the human condition onstage and make it dance."

That Garrison-Keillor-on-downers performance impressed The New York Times, too: "The superlative actor James Sugg played a man locked in the echoing chambers of his mind," writes Charles Isherwood, "endlessly recalling his encounters with a trio of brothers he yearns to connect with."

Chekhov Lizardbrain's kaput in Philly for now, but pay attention to the 2009 Live Arts/Philly Fringe Web site in the coming months, because Sugg and Pig Iron's Welcome to Yuba City is debuting, and tickets are going to sell out. Like, Bruce Springsteen fast.