1. This Chihuahua Who Found Out That There Was No Live Stream of the Nomination Announcements, But Then Remembered That Twitter is a Thing.
Notice that she is still real disappointed. I’m sure someone did the calculations on viewership and setup cost and it didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean that one still can’t complain about it. On the plus side, not having a livestream means that said livestream wasn’t marred by technical problems. Also, three important HHA Twitter facts:
last night, #HHANoms was trending in Philadelphia,
many people will be calling in sick today with sore thumbs,
and Twitter Goddess Gwen Grastorf (@gwenigma) was nominated for her role in Impossible! A Happenstance Circus, which I highly recommended
2. The announcement of Rorschach’s Very Still and Hard to See getting 5 nominations that gave this Australian Shepherd flashbacks.
First imagine that those aren’t cupcakes being presented to this poor buddy, but representations of the 5 award nominations for Steve Yockey’s Japanese-inspired hotel horrorshow. Then, imagine that this dog is replaying all of the terrifying scenes from that play, from a human hole consuming the floor to blank-masked ghosts appearing out of nowhere to cackling revenge arson, in its poor tiny head. Much like this dog, I actually couldn’t tell whether I peed myself from fear because I had to go home to huddle in the shower fully clothed and rock back and forth afterward. Only for a few hours though.
3. These Pugs that are Basically Flying V
Flying V has done something unique this year by grabbing multiple nominations for HHA the year after they won the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theater Company. Some previous winners like Constellation Theatre and Faction of Fools have nabbed a single nod, but Flying V’s pair (including Outstanding Ensemble for Flying V Fights: Heroes and Monsters) is unprecedented. And they’ve done it all while being chillaxing, pop-savvy “cool” nerds. Not unlike these pugs.
4. This Mutt Who Embodies Many Theater Artists’ Attitudes Toward Awards
One guarantee when nominations come out or awards are given is a flood of posts from artists claiming that they don’t care about awards and that the concept of theater awards (that is, comparing one theatrical production to another) is nonsensical. While I sympathize in the sense that every piece of theater is its own special snowflake, I would argue that not only are comparisons inevitable, but awards competitions are necessary because they give a sense of the zeitgeist, foster discussion, and provide a platform to show off our best local work to the national stage. Then again, my job is to write about shows, literally comparing them and giving them a star rating, so what do I know.
5. One Golden Retriever Puppy for Every Nomination for Shakespeare Theater Company
I realize that this gif doesn’t contain 26 puppies, but if you let it loop enough times, it’ll get there. Their nominations include the Design Grand Slam for Salomé (Set, Light, Sound and Costume), plus a variety of nominations for their Man of La Mancha and Kiss Me, Kate, which proves that STC stages roof-raising musicals that are not only popular, but award-garnering and relatively within their mission.
6. This Dog that Can’t Understand Whether his Projection Design Goes in the Set or Lighting Categories.
Projection design has been hotly debated at least since I was on the HHA judges panel. Where does it belong? Is it lights since it uses light? Is it set since they can provide structure and context for a show? Should it be in a separate category since it really isn’t set or lights? If so, how do you judge it, because not every show has projections or media design? In a bold move this year, theatreWashington has said, “Porque no los dos?” and put one nomination for projections in Set (for Arena’s Dear Evan Hansen) and one nomination in Lights (for Theater Alliance’s Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea). Finally, yes, I know that is a cat. It’s an entry about confusion, you see, very ironic.
7. A West Highland Terrier Who Had an Experience Similar to Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s
Since the split of Helen (ie dirty plebian) productions and Hayes (ie snooty plutocrat) productions last year, it has become commonly understood that a the few theaters in town that can afford to produce shows featuring a majority of Equity member actors on the regular form share the Hayes Awards in a sort of closed loop, pie chart form while hoards of less-than-Equity smaller companies scrap over the Helen Awards.
Unfortunately, this year Woolly Mammoth got a slice of pie relatively equivalent to the slice that my grandmother would give me because she was worried about enabling her mouth-breathingly chubby grandson in his downward spiral of eating his repressed emotions. Much like this Golden Retriever and West Highland Terrier, in the Hayes Category, one theater’s gain is another theater’s loss. Poor Woolly, they stage three world premiere productions, including the much-anticipated and well-reviewed Women Laughing Alone With Salad and bring in several highly acclaimed visiting productions, and this is the thanks they get. I would encourage you to go see Woolly productions despite this setback because their spring lineup is dynamite.
8. This Puppet Dog Who Wins Hearts and Minds as Much as Avenue Q’s Puppets
The breakout production of this awards season is undoubtedly the surprising and intimate staging of Broadway smash Avenue Q by tiny Constellation Theater Company. When I interviewed Avenue Q director and Artistic Director of Constellation, Allison Stockman, we talked about how this show represents a significant departure from Constellation’s previous work, taking their mission in a new direction and appealing to a younger, hipper crowd. That new direction has worked like a charm, making Avenue Q the best selling show in Constellation history and now garnering 16 nominations of Helen Hayes Awards, more than any other production.
‘different functions’ is exactly my point in several apparently poorly worded places [grin]. right on.
I think that perhaps “criticism” and “judging” are two different functions. The critic advises potential audience on the merits (or what she sees as the merits) of an ongoing production; the judge tells the world (many months after the production has closed, in most cases) what he considers most worth celebrating. As KathleenA points out, criticism is transparent, and must be, since its objective (taken as a whole) is to advise the public to spend its scarce entertainment dollar on play A rather than play B. So if I see a play reviewed favorably by Alan Katz, I might be persuaded by his reasoning to attend it, or, being able to “speak Alan”, I might conclude that however tight his reasoning is his taste in this particular sort of play is different than mine.
Judging — as in Helen Hayes judging — is a different animal altogether. No serious person would conclude that Production A (say *CAMELOT*) was a better production than Production B simply because Production A received a Helen Hayes Award and Production B was not nominated. More to the point, it wouldn’t matter, since (probably) both Production A and Production B are closed. What the Helen Hayes Award says (I think) is that a sizable, though not scientifically selected, sample of theatergoers thought highly of Production A. That’s really all it says. They may have thought highly of Production B, but by a statistically insignificant margin somewhat less highly than they thought of Production A. Is that a meaningful comment on Production B? I don’t think so. I think there are much more meaningful comments on Production B, such as how well was it received by critics and audiences. Decades later, companies produce *The Glass Menagerie* notwithstanding that it lost the Pulitzer to *Harvey* and *West Side Story* notwithstanding that it lost the Tony to *The Music Man.*
I THINK I would argue that the numbers aren’t enough for me to learn to speak Alan: I also need the steady exposure to his verbal unpacking of numerical value that prevents me from assuming his broken knee creates the same perception of pain as my broken knee, if that makes sense. I currently share a dressing room with six other actors, all extremely talented women, and people talk about things they saw and liked and I can tell we don’t necessarily agree on what makes a great acting job: we agree on what’s not good, and we agree on what’s working — but that response you have to something that makes you give it special recognition, that’s very hard to understand from person to person without more than numbers.
and as to your second paragraph: a. I’m not sure that the difference between criticism and judging needs to be ‘satisfied,’ I just wanted to separate them in response to what I take to be your assertion that people who dismiss the significance of the awards vis-a-vis merit (guilty) are ignoring the fact that awards, like reviews, accurately represent the zeitgeist. they can stay separate, I just think praise from Trey Graham is more meaningful than getting the CAMELOT review (she said lapsing into needless euphemism). b. and even if I did think the difference should be solved, it can’t be just by knowing each judge’s history of numbers (though that would be fascinating!), because I still don’t know their language well enough to know whether they call a broken knee a 4 or a 9. I see Judge applications every year as an artistic director, which application form requires them to write a paragraph describing why they liked something, and I’m prepared to argue that more than 3/4 of the judges and I don’t viscerally agree on what makes a great moment of theater: so I would need more words from them, and more specific words from them, in order to learn their numbers.
and on a personal note, please don’t give in to the evil! I like reading your writing. if your articles just went ‘6, 845, 9000021. 5! 89 (30305), 66?’ I would be very sad. intrigued, but sad. 🙂
and p.s. I like the awards. I’m glad so many of my friends are being celebrated. and I like dressing up. just talking about details of merit review.
That’s a fascinating hypothetical. There’s a certain selfish and probably evil part of me that wishes I could go back to judging and just assign a matrix of numbers to a play and its artists and have it be left at that. Following your argument, it might be fine for me to do that, as long as those numbers were published consistently and openly. A person could look at the numbers I assign and derive the critical language you talk about in your second paragraph.
Does that mean that if theatreWashington released all of its numbers, each rating that judges gave for every show with the name of the judge (or a nickname to maintain anonymity?) for the whole year, would that be better? Would that satisfy the difference between criticism and awards judging?
this is great, but I’d like to cheerfully argue (in the spirit of a masked pug) with the comparison of the critical response to art and the judging-for-awards response to art, and in doing so suggest that the former brings more light to the issue of what is the zeitgeist whereas the latter just creates helpful visibility and a reason to party.
you write a review and assign it some stars. I read the review and I understand the value Alan Katz placed on the production, and if I read more than one of your reviews (and see the shows you reviewed) I also develop the ability to ‘speak’ Alan: when he gives two stars I have a sense of what kind of show it was, I can tell when he’s being generous for something new, I can tell when he’s had it with repetitive aesthetic in the same theater. so the end product of your work — the review — involves transparency and reasonable quantifiability.
now pretend you’re one of the three people writing a review of, say, PASSION PLAY. also pretend your review won’t even get out into the world if the three critics reviewing CAMELOT give it more combined stars than the three of you on the first show. also imagine that although the organizing body of your work attempts uniformity when you get Critic Training (‘three stars means you liked it exactly 60% much, which is roughly how you feel when you find $20 in your jeans’), you’re dealing with six critics who probably would also, experiencing the same injury, pick different numbers on the 1-10 pain scale used in medical settings: this is not hard to imagine. imagine some of the critics involved give everything five stars (also not hard to imagine). [here I would risk the general assertion that critics with the depth and subtlety to watch demanding work also are probably temperamentally less likely to give shoutingly excited reviews with all superlatives, checking down the ballot in a series of unexamined 5s next to smiley faces, but I’ll leave that out of the argument because it’s just icing: the argument is still a whole cake without it — and that was a dumb metaphor] finally, imagine there has to be a pool of critics large enough to get everything seen, but this also means no critic sees everything.
so you love PASSION PLAY with its intriguing theatrical casting demands and how each act explodes at the end in a fantasy crescendo and the cool way this particular production involved the audience in the world of the performers, but critic #2 in your group really hates fourth wall violations and also has a small bladder and critic #3 in your group digs the larger ideas but had some quibbles with some of the staging and between you all the result is 9 stars. meanwhile CAMELOT, packaged, shiny, immortal as the spring, blameless, heart-breaking, proven, needs only one vote above meh to get 10: two ‘sure why not’ ratings and one from one of the enthused — even if they’re feeling only a 4 worth of enthused — means:
the end product of your work — a review of CAMELOT — doesn’t even reflect you directly. one of the critics who gave it a 3 is surprised to learn that it runs even though that critic gave WOMEN LAUGHING ALONE WITH SALAD five stars. the people who read the CAMELOT review have no idea what were the tastes and judgments behind it (and what they missed reading) the way they do when they read a real review. despite a judge vetting process the HH people work hard to make reflect the industry in a broad and deep way, it still is a process with so many hidden psychological variables and statistical booby traps that the ‘rating’ that comes out of it is vastly different from what you do.
I like the cut of your jib, Gfunk.
I hope you realize that #6 is a cat.
As for the issue of projections, there is no confusion:
TheatreWashington, which administers the Helen Hayes Awards, lets the producers of each elgible production to decide for themselves whether a particular show’s projections will be included in the lighting design or set design category.
Easy.