I was reminded today that I’d not yet recorded a recent event in my LJ.

Last Wedneday, the Wilde Awards were held.

The Wilde Awards are a big Theatre Awards show for Michigan – they’re sponsored by the Between The Lines, a wonderful weekly newspaper that is very supportive of the arts, and of Theatre in MIchigan. A publication dedicated to the LGBT community, Between The Lines is, in fact, the last awards show standing in Michigan, after two daily newspapers discontinued their ceremonies. (The Detroit Free Press continues to do awards in the paper, as do several newspapers, but they’ve ended their yearly Awards Night.) Between The Lines puts on a wonderful, entertaining, respectful show. It’s a nice celebration of Michigan Theatre.

I was honored to win two awards for directing last week at the Wilde Awards. They were:

Favorite Local Professional Production (Comedy): “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol,” Performance Network Theatre; Tony Caselli, director

and Jim Posante and I won as co-directors for the show I had to take over directing when he had a heart attack partway through rehearsals. He’s made a great recovery, and we accepted this award together:

Favorite Local Professional Production with LGBT Themes or Characters: “Take Me Out,” Performance Network Theatre; Jim Posante & Tony Caselli, directors

It was a great event, I managed to not sound like an idiot with my acceptance speeches, and the food was free! Plus, Ray Schultz and Darrell Glasgow both won acting awards for Take Me Out, which is always a great feeling for a director! One of the other great things about The Wilde Awards is that some of them are decided on by the critics, and some awards are decided on by the readers of the paper, who vote online or through the mail. Both of the awards I won were voted on by the public, which is a nice feeling. Win or lose, it really is an honor to have your work recognized – especially among some fantastic theatre artists. It was quite nice to really feel like a part of the Michigan Theatre Community, and I was proud to represent the casts and production staffs of both of those shows as I accepted the awards. Directing is all about the people you work with, and Jim and I were both lucky to have great collaborators on both projects.

Williamston Theatre was nicely represented, with all 4 Founding Members present, as well as 2 Board Members. Unfortunately, our first production, Additional Particulars was done too late in the season to be eligible for any award nominations. Who knows, there’s always next year – a WT nomination would help nicely in our efforts to continue generating buzz about our new company!

Also, Lots of other awards were handed out to a bunch of great folks, including my good friend Kate Peckham who sometimes reads this journal – nice job Kate!! 🙂

So, all in all, a nice evening!