As for a split of aesthetic, again I submit that there is a greater difference between for profit theater and non-profit than between the extremes within non-profit. Broadway is all about scale and spectacle. That’s it’s own thing.

Meanwhile here, though two theaters may have big differences in their budgets and that will be reflected in how fancy the scenery is, the fact is that a set that costs next to nothing could be (and some have been) a better design and use of the space it’s in than a set that costs ten thousand. That’s true across the board. The budget of a theater has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the work. And that works both ways, of course: a big theater can (and they have done) terrific work.

There is certainly dichotomy of audience.

Not surprising. But these things do need to be said, so they get said.

” And every year someone says “They should make an award ceremony for the smaller companies so they can be nominated” and every year nothing changes. So why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?”

It’s a terrible idea. The whole point here is that there is such a thing as getting it right with nominations, and there is a large degree to which that’s not subjective. There is such a thing as an objective way to assess design, direction and acting and it’s clear from the comments right here that everyone knows that and wishes that the best had been nominated across the board. (Not that no one nominated was deserving, but…) Smaller awards make it seem like a sour grapes thing. That’s not what the issue is.

The awards-system pitch I made in 2002 (called “the Boozer Stooges” in an attempt to prevent self-importance, and, in hindsight, agreement) was to the artistic directors of all professional non-Equity companies. It resulted in a pretty strenuous e-wrestling match, with debate about whether by such awards we would “ghettoize” ourselves; whether the awards should cover all theaters, non-Equity theaters, theaters with a certain seating capacity, theaters with a certain ticket price, or something as simple as theaters that wanted to be considered; who would be the judges and whether the ballot weighting system I proposed was rot (apparently “yes”); whether we should form a consortium, some LOWT-sect, and make that the organization behind the awards; whether we should mimic the Obie Awards (Mondello chimed in with the view that critic turnover was too high and how he and Trey wouldn’t be around long enough to do their part for judging consistency. Hi Bob!).

Shin-biting was not far off (not with Mondello – I mean among artistic directors). The subject died.

Now every year some nominee or other(s) makes me spit out my coffee, and some omission makes me wonder whether awards systems should just man up and call themselves “the mean:” “and the Oscar mean in voting was reached by Julia Roberts” [wild applause]. But that’s not solved by starting a new system, that’s solved by (I know, I said it here already) better judges. To the extent that we admit a value or meaning to awards (and I see that was debated above, but I’m going to take it as read, for this point, that We Care) we should want them to come from people who understand that Ed Gero blew the doors off Studio in Shining City not just because he’s a household name or because he was doing his thing on a financially glossy set but because he filled every single one of those unfinished sentences with specific meaning without losing pace – and who understand that Frank Britton achieved the same thing in Constellation’s Temptation. And who understand that their job is to respond to that, what is really meant by Acting: not to the neighborhood they had to drive to or the condition of the bathroom in the lobby (if there is one) or to each man’s bio, or to each man’s costume (until they come to that part of the form anyway) and so on.

So after years of chewing it over, I don’t necessarily want an alternative awards system. I’ll be an egregious ass hat right out in the open here and say that I would feel qualified to “judge” direction and design at Arena right alongside direction and design at dog & pony dc, with no handicapping, or bias (in either direction) – and that’s how I personally think it should be done, within the part of me that Cares. Because I have this notion I can barely articulate that to the extent awards have any meaning it is inextricable from community.

However, you hear things. Alternative systems may be coming. And I’ll do my part to help them work in the spirit of, well, community. We shall see.

And while I’m at it, 2008’s Boozer Stooge winners in no particular order are: Kim Gilbert as Mercutio in R&J at Taffety Punk, David Graham Jones for Hotspur in Folger’s Henry IV, Colleen Delany for Old Woman in Scena’s Chairs, John Vreeke for direction of Judas Iscariot at Forum, A.J. Guban’s set for Constellation’s Temptation, Charter’s This Perfect World for new play and Pei Lee’s costuming work in general. I missed some shows/designs/performances I’ll bet I would have liked, but unscientifically, and from my gut, there. The only recipients of a Boozer Stooge there will ever be. Thank goodness.

Here we are, yet again. The HH noms are out and everyone is complaining that not all the right shows were nominated. This happens every year, is this something that surprises you? And every year someone says “They should make an award ceremony for the smaller companies so they can be nominated” and every year nothing changes. So why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?

Long essay short, this process was better in every way. Not that the results always reflected the highest quality work of a given season of DC theater, but it was better.

I don’t dismiss your concerns about HH’s and its process at all. And I would never disparage the smaller companies in this city or the people who work at them as that is where I work.

I just don’t think in the over all big scheme of things that the HH’s are that important.

Well at least not unless ever they nominate me and them all bets are off!! lol

That is what the awards were created for, and that is what they have strayed from. The contest part is secondary. The important part is press for the companies and artists. Changes can and should be made to the awards so that they can more effectively promote DC theatre. The rest of this discussion is high school gossip – avoid that at all costs.

When you are performing a show, and by performing a show I mean to include everyone who contributed to the production, and at the end the lights have faded, the house lights have come up and the sound of the audience clapping is ringing in your ears do you think:

“That should impress the Helen Hayes’s judges.”

or do you think:

“I guess the audience really liked it.”

The Helen Hayes Awards, while a nice feather in someone’s cap, is not the reason we perform and it should not be put on a pedestal. It’s the audience and the audience only that is important. With out them we would be talking among ourselves in a room some place not performing.

So stop all this idol chatter and get off book.

While the Helen Hayes Awards may not honor all the good work being done in DC, the recognition is meaningful to the nominees.We’ll be doing our annual feature on HHA nominees, so you can read their reactions for yourselves.

I also hope everyone remembers that our Audience Choice Awards are coming up in August.While not perfect either, (we’re working on it!) our writers and readers chose Last Days of Judas Iscariot as their favorite play. No big ceremony or trophy. But we do a radio play that everyone can ‘attend’ and some bread for the winners.

Lastly, I’d like to enlist the brainpower of everyone writing here to help in the upcoming redesign of the site. (See ‘Rethinking DC Theatre Scene’ posted today.)

Thanks for reading. Thanks for writing. And play nice.

The DCTS comments section allow us to freely discuss things. In this particular thread, I don’t see anything really disparaging. Besides, isn’t half the fun of an awards show debating what didn’t make the cut? It’s no different than any Oscar blog, Grammy blog and the like.

Now, if you’re offended by the discussion regarding ways to improve the HH awards, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a constructive conversation.

And, on a personal note, I’ve got to tell you that I’m SO pleased that you felt the need to assert your superiority over the rest of us. Really, if you have nothing to contribute, why are you bothering to post something? To make yourself feel better?

So maybe, as Steve suggests, HH should go ahead and create a special category for “Outstanding Production Low-Budget LOWT Member.” It wouldn’t have to be mutually exclusive of any of the other awards. Perhaps knowing that an award will, for sure, go to a Low-Budget LOWT Member will cause the judges to pay close attention, rather than just go through the motion of attending those shows. Further, as the number of nominations for outstanding Low-Budget LOWT Member theatre productions build over the years it might increase the odds of their receiving nominations in other categories. (The danger, of course, is the opposite could happen. Judges could think, “Well, the small theaters have their own award. I don’t need to really need to consider them for other categories.”)

And while we’re revamping the HH awards, they really should separate the MacArthur award into two categories (play and musical), as they did at least in one prior year. If plays are distinguished from musicals in terms of performance, why aren’t they distinguished in terms of writing? It’s really strange to have straight playwrights competing against composers.

Regarding “small theatre,” I work primarily for lower budget, professional theatres. And while you might not think that these theatres would not want them because they wouldn’t “mean more,” I argue that, unless the process for training and utilizing judges within the HH committee changes, those low budget theatres are continually going to be left in the cold. You need look no further than this year’s “Outstanding Resident Play” to see that. In fact, I would argue that, traditionally, the Canadian Embassy Award gets their nominees more “right” than the HH judges.

Obviously, all of theatre is subjective. Things I like you may not, and vice versa. As a Washington Actor/Director and theatre-goer, I look at the nominations each year and think, “Wow, they phoned it in. Again.” Nominations like Michael Bobbitt, Theatre J and Toby’s are all well earned and well-deserved. But then we spend time nominating a production/actor/actress that blew through town. Sure, it may have been a great performance, but I would argue that there’s more value in recognizing local theatres over non-resident productions. After all, HH award = better ticket sales, which means bigger audiences, which means more exposure.

Finally, I can’t, in any good conscience, condone the sentence of, “here were 172 HH eligible productions last year. No one can see everything. At least they have 8 of the 60+ judges see each show.” Look, I know that we all do this for love (it’s certainly not for the money). But when a theatre becomes LOWT eligible, and joins, there’s an expectation that eligible shows will be reviewed. Now, if the HH judges can’t fulfill that obligation, then it’s up to the HH Board of Directors to fix it. Admittedly, I don’t have an answer for this. But obviously something must be done.

So, replace the non-resident awards with some sort of “low budget LOWT member” catagory, with a classification of operating budget per year (and not per show). I think you’d get much more recognition of the truly excellent work that is being done in DC (with theatres like Forum, Journeyman, Constellation, WSC). Right now, it seems like big budget=big awards.

Jesse: That’s an interesting idea to scrap the nonresident awards. But in the end I think they add value. It may not directly promote DC theatre, but it does promote the awards themselves. The bigger stars and bigger shows tend to appear in the nonresident productions. Plus, those productions travel. So a nomination of a nonresident actor or production is more likely to get attention outside of DC. There are only 4 non-resident awards (lead actor in a nonresident production, lead actress in a nonresident production, supporting performer in a nonresident production, and best nonresident production). They seem pretty targeted to get the most bang for the HH’s buck. (Of course, my more cynical side might believe that the extra awards are included just so the HH judges and their SO’s can get free tickets to nonresident productions.)

Dfg: It is exactly because there are so many productions that the process is flawed. There were 172 HH eligible productions last year. No one can see everything. At least they have 8 of the 60+ judges see each show. I’m not sure how it could be improved. Do you have a suggestion? In the end, as the HH press release suggests, the nomination process is simply a method to identify outstanding work. However, there will always be other outstanding work (arguably even more outstanding) that doesn’t happen to be nominated each year. How is it that some students are rejected by Harvard but admitted to Yale (and vice versa)? You shouldn’t diminish the significance of what the Harvard students have accomplished just because some of the Yalies didn’t get in.

also, great point abf