During a reception in Tampa Theatre on Monday evening, members of Theatre Tampa Bay announced the nominations for the 2016 TTB Awards, celebrating the best of local professional theater. (The awards gala will be held at The Palladium on Oct. 3.)
There were nominations aplenty for freeFall (57 in all, including 14 for Peter and the Starcatcher) and American Stage (48 total, including 10 apiece for The Pitmen Painters and 4000 Miles). Stageworks’ 5 Lesbians Eating Quiche and Tampa Rep's Silent Sky each snagged 10.
All in all, a total of 153 nominees were cited in 31 categories, representing 24 productions by five companies (the fifth being St. Pete Opera, which received two nods for South Pacific).
But, once again, there wasn't a single nomination for Jobsite.
That's not because of a lack of quality. On the contrary: Jobsite had a particularly good season this year, including the hilarious Silence! The Musical, the searing performances of David Jenkins and Joanna Sycz in Time Stands Still, and the exemplary ensemble work of Ned Averill-Snell, Katrina Stevenson and Derrick Phillips in Lebensraum — to name just a few.
But their work for Jobsite didn't get nominated for TTB awards for a simple reason: Artistic Director Jenkins and his board don't play that way. Whereas other participating theaters submit ballots listing actors and production teams for judges to score, Jobsite decided before the 2014-2015 season that it wanted its shows be considered only for the overall "Recommended" rating which judges grant (or not) to each show during the season, and which companies are then free to promote. (All three of the above-mentioned productions were "Recommended," as was The Maids, which I did not see.)
Full disclosure here: I'm a TTB judge. And the reason I mention this is because I really wanted to vote for Jobsite's work this year (I was not a judge last season, having taken a hiatus after the first two years of my three-year term). Plus, TTB's annual roster of nominees should be a record of the theater season, and without the achievements of one of the area's most important troupes, the record is incomplete (and the awards are spread out among fewer companies).
Jenkins and Jobsite don't take their decision to eschew the awards competition lightly. In an email, Jenkins explained to me that while the company is "more than happy to support TTB as a dues-paying member,” they feel that the awards system “as it stands now” does not work the way it should, citing concerns about the adjudication process and the degree to which the awards actually do what they're meant to do: promote local professional theater.
His concerns are varied and complex — enough so that he and I plan to sit down this week to discuss them. I'll report back.
Meanwhile, here's how the awards work: To be eligible for consideration, companies have to be TTB members, pay their artists, and offer at least 12 performances of their shows (or have a potential audience of 2,500). Judges (who are appointed by a panel of artistic directors to two-year terms) are asked to attend opening weekends to give companies time to take advantage of the 'Recommended' imprimatur if they receive one. We are expected to keep our opinions to ourselves, and not to tell other judges how we voted — so that when the nominations were announced, we were as much in the dark as any of the theaters as to what would wind up on the list.
As one of my fellow judges said to me afterwards, there were surprises both in what did get nominated and what didn't.
You can find the full list of nominees here. Eight companies were eligible for awards; three of those participating (Silver Meteor, Lab Theatre Project and Powerstories) failed to receive nominations. Note that certain categories separate the theaters by annual budget — below and above $500,000. The panel of judges will meet in mid-September, at which time we'll come to a consensus about the final awards.
One more note: During Monday's ceremony, the winners of this year's $500 Jeff Norton Dream Grants were announced. Named for the beloved actor/director/educator who was murdered in St. Petersburg in 2010, the grants are awarded to help local theater artists realize dream projects, no strings attached. The 2016 winners are playwright Natalie Symons for a work in progress and Jim Wicker for a one-man play he wrote and plans to perform.
CORRECTIONS: The TTB awards guidelines separate theaters into those with budgets above and below $500,000, not $5,000, as an earlier version had stated. (Math. Sheesh.) Also, two more corrections from that version: Judges serve for three-year, not two-year terms, and companies who want to participate in the awards are required to compensate “all artists on a regular basis,” not just “actors."
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2016.
