Louis Altarescu and Alan Friedman, well known volunteer ushers and theater enthusiasts until Friedman’s untimely death last month, have been selected to receive the 2019 Gary Maker Audience Award, given to audience members who support theater enthusiastically and well.
Altarescu will receive the Maker Award at a brief ceremony before Washington Stage Guild’s October 20 closing performance of Candida, which will be at 2:30pm. Tickets are available at the Washington Stage Guild website.
DC Theatre Scene presents the award in honor of Maker, a DC resident who so enjoyed theater that he hand-wrote dozens of reviews of shows he liked and mailed them to his friends. Maker died in 2011.
Altarescu and Friedman, who were married to each other, were mainstays at Round House Theatre, Washington Stage Guild, Theater J, Signature Theatre and many others. Washington Stage Guild nominated them for the Maker Award.
“Starting in the late 90s, Alan and Lou were our reliable opening-night volunteer ushers, and their sociable, affable personalities were perfect for that role, greeting regulars, newcomers, and critics with equal warmth,” Washington Stage Guild Artistic Director Bill Largess said. “Over the years they became personal friends to all of us, and shared our professional and personal highs and lows with grace and empathy. Alan will be deeply missed and Lou will remain a treasured member of our circle.”
“[J]ust seeing Alan and Lou taking tickets would help put critics in a better mood before entering the theatre,” Joy Johnson said in a comment she made to Jayne Blanchard’s article celebrating Friedman’s life in DCTS.
The Friedman-Altarescu connection with area theater is of long standing. In a 2003 article for the Washington Post, Jane Horowitz quoted Catherine Flye, then artistic director for the long-missed Interact Theatre, as saying, “I can’t imagine an opening night without my boys, as I call them…They’re just wonderful — not just in their efficiency, but in their cheerful good humor. . . . They just go in there with their sleeves rolled up.”
Join DC Theatre Scene for the presentation of the 2019 Gary Maker Audience award: Sunday, October 20 at 2:30pm before the start of Washington Stage Guild’s Candida. Details and tickets.
DCTS Publisher and Editor Lorraine Treanor, who conceived the award says: “Not until an audience arrives does theatre come to life. Audience members are the final collaborators.” The Gary Maker Audience Award is the only award in the country which recognizes the importance played by the audience.
Candidates are nominated by area theaters. The Maker Award is decided by a panel composed of Lorraine Treanor, Gary Maker’s personal friends, and previous Maker Award winners. Not all recipients participated in this year’s panel.
Previous Maker Award winners are David Tannous (2011), Alison Drucker and Tom Holzman (2012), Linda Elyse Bryce (2013), Barbara Bear (2014), David S. Kessler (2015), Lisa Carr (2016) and the late Joel Markowitz (2017, for lifetime achievement). DCTS gave no award in 2018.
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