Best Theater Newcomer
Sam Cordes In This Corner
Cast as a smart, surly teen in Ry Kincaid's latest play last May, the youngish Sam Cordes (a playwright-actor-musician who would certainly win Best Cheekbones if such a category existed) took the Westport Coffee House stage like he was Napoleon taking Europe -- just taller and with more charisma. Seeming to blaze from within, Cordes played Andy, caretaker of a mentally disabled sister with whom he is forced to endure a weekend with a cousin who used to bully him. Andy was disgusted at humanity's pettiness but not above indulging in it himself, and watching Cordes lash out at the world around him at times looked almost like a documentary. Finally, artists are exploring, with wit and fury, not just what has young men so pissed off in this culture but what's making them so aggressive about it. In Cordes' ferocious eyes, we saw the link between Holden Caulfield and Columbine.
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