- Amy Elizabeth Gray
- Jobsite's Kari Goetz and David Jenkins present the Jobsite Honorary Award to Greta Man.
Other cities have them.
Now Tampa Bay has its own big professional theater awards gala.
Actors and other theater professionals gathered at the Palladium Monday night for the first-ever Jeff Norton Theater Awards.
The event was hosted by four theaters: American Stage, Gorilla Theatre, Jobsite Theater and Stageworks Theatre. Awards were given for each theater by each theater, voted by ballot by audience members.
The event on Aug. 22 elicited a spirit of camaraderie and fond remembrance to celebrate dearly departed theater community members and excellence in local theater.
ABC Action News anchor Brendan McLaughlin emceed with co-host Jen Holloway. Packy Boukis and John Paul Boukis of Only You consulting managed the event.
Though a good many theater professionals in the outer circle of the awards were supportive, the event had its detractors. Some friends of the late Jeff Norton felt that the awards didn't celebrate the memory of spirit of the event's namesake the way it should have by not reaching out to smaller theaters, venues where the beloved actor performed himself. These opinions were expressed on the Jeff Norton memorial Facebook page.
Another viewpoint is that the directors of the big four were contending with the challenges of limited time and resources and just doing their best to get the event off the ground, a point made during CL's recent interview with Bridget Bean, managing director of Gorilla. "We're just not that sophisticated," she repeated in self-deprecating fashion.
Awards were being given in 10 categories by 20 presenters from the local theater community:
This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2011.