Theatre Thoughts: MTA Awards

THEATRE THOUGHTS: Notes From the Executive Director

Awards. Awards for theatre excellence. Competing with other theatres and theatre artists. The Metrolina Theatre Association (MTA) Awards. So easy to dismiss them—until you actually win. Then suddenly you feel a bit like a hypocrite. That was the position I found myself in on Sunday, October 9 at the Metrolina Theatre Awards banquet at the Omni Hotel.

First, some background info for those who are unfamiliar with MTA. MTA represents more than 60 theatre organizations, along with hundreds of theatre artists, directors and producers in the Charlotte region. MTA was established on April 1, 1984. Its mission is to advance member participation through technological innovation, strengthen arts awareness in the community by creating new ways to engage the public and be a strong advocate of the performing arts. Whew. Anyway, one of the ways of helping create arts awareness is the awards process and ceremony. But, I always thought, “Awards? Who’s going to care the day after the ceremony? And competing with one’s peers? Not such a good thing.”

Anyway, The Metrolina Theatre Awards recognize outstanding performances and creative elements in 8 categories - Drama, Comedy, Musical, Regional–North, Regional–South, College/University, and Special Event. The Metrolina Theatre Association organizes more than 80 peer nominators; for the 2010-2011 season, MTA nominators attended 105 adjudicated shows, submitting thousands of nominations. They then completed a preliminary ballot to select the award nominees. The final vote was certified by an independent accountant.

The 2010-2011 Theatre Charlotte season was outstanding, both in terms of revenue and artistic quality. It was the finest in my six years as Executive Director and most likely one of the most successful in Theatre Charlotte’s 83 years. It included ANNIE, STEEL MAGNOLIAS, THE GRADUATE, THE GLASS MENAGERIE and RENT, with bonus productions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR. There was excellent work done by many actors, directors, designers and stage managers. For this work we received over 40 nominations in various categories, including about 10 for our outstanding production of RENT.

In spite of my outward cavalier attitude about awards, I went to the ceremony baffled about certain nominations and the lack thereof, but feeling excited about the chances of some of our nominees. The event itself proved to be a lot of fun. I enjoyed the ambience of the hotel ballroom. I liked being able to socialize with so many area theatre people. Then the awards ceremony began. As the final awards—the MTA Exceptional Awards for Technical Excellence, Emerging Artist of the Year, Theatre Person of the Year and Theatre Company of the Year—approached, I was actually excited about what Theatre Charlotte’s participants had won. Chaz Pofahl, Outstanding Actor in a musical for RENT, Billy Ensley for his direction of RENT, John Hartness for his lighting design of RENT and Ryan Deal for musical direction of RENT, were deserving of the awards, as were Laura Moore, Vito Abate and Marla Brown for their original writing for special events and Ann Israel and Laura Moore for performances in special events. Then the announcement of Outstanding Musical. I expected it to be RENT and it wasn’t. I was surprised at how badly I felt at that moment, considering how much I tried to convince myself awards didn’t really matter. I was not unhappy for the winners, but felt badly for all those connected with our excellent production of RENT.

The presentation of the Exceptional Awards began. It was now time for the Theatre Company of the Year Award and Theatre Charlotte was a nominee (as we had been a handful of other times during my tenure as Executive Director and had never been selected.) After the disappointment of RENT not getting the award, I was not feeling positive about being selected as Theatre Company of the Year. The nominees were announced and the envelope opened and… Theatre Company of the Year…Theatre Charlotte! I have to admit, a jolt of adrenaline surged through me and I bolted from my chair. I don’t remember what I said exactly. I thanked all the appropriate people. And then Michelle Gutt, the Theatre Charlotte Board President and I posed for pictures with the Theatre Charlotte award.

To sum it all up, I am still not totally sold on this awards business, but, I do have to admit, when you win one, it is pretty damn exciting.

-Ron Law Executive Director, Theatre Charlotte