BO JOHNSON

When this concept was first trotted out for opinions last year, I was one of the voices that supported it. So, for what it's worth, I'll explain my reasons.

But let me also say, right up front, that the mechanics of the awards as they've been engineered so far (and please, those of you who have done honest, good faith work on that engineering, don't take offense. Your efforts are much appreciated. I trust you will take my comments in the spirit that they are meant.) does not seem like the most advantageous system for, what I think, is the only purpose for awards.

The only real reason for industry awards is their use as a marketing tool. But I also agree with Fletch, marketing an award the season after it has been granted is a fairly weak tool. I believe that the strongest means of marketing is done by empowering the general audience with the ability to decide who wins the awards.

The first reaction of any theatre artist, after reading the last paragraph, will be, "No way would I trust the general public to know the difference between shit and shinola." And I agree, you shouldn't. That's not the point. The point is that we need to find ways of motivating more people to go see theatre. If their ability to chose who wins meaningless awards is one of the ways to promote that, I think its worth trying.

As a community, we would have to just constantly remind ourselves of all the things that Fletch is absolutely right about; these awards are arbitrary, unfairly weighted, prejudiced, popularity contests, and are no way an indicator of the best work that happens in this community. The best that we can hope for is that it prompts a percentage of the general market to go see a few more shows every season because they want to be a part of the awards process.

Honestly, an awards ceremony isn't even necessary. Send the winners a letter saying that they were "given an award by a group of cretans who sat through your performance reading the program and forgetting to turn off their cell phone," and leave it at that. But make sure that the press gets informed about the winners and hope that somebody writes a few more articles.

The WAMI (Wisconsin Area Music Industry) awards are a reasonable parallel. Winners are voted on by the general public with a ballot that's supplied in Wisconsin's major newspapers and on-line. The nominees (in case you've ever wondered) are selected by a ballot that's supplied to WAMI members only. Which is why local musicians give some prestige to the honor of being nominated and none to the final winner. But it keeps local musicians in the public eye. (There is an awards ceremony. It has been at the theatre in the Potowatomi Casino for the last 5 or 6 years. Its a drunk fest. Oh man!)

Similarly, a model where nominees are selected in any number of ways (by the critics definitely NOT being one of them); by the producers, all peers in the industry, peers only in that discipline, etc., etc., but the final winners are decided by the public seems, to me, to be the most useful purpose for awards. If the general public ballots are only made available to audiences in attendance at theatrical events, as opposed to easy availability in newspapers or on-line, it might be a better audience building tool, though a more complicated system to deal with. I don't know.

So, those are my opinions, and there are lots of other details I won't get into here; equity/noneq, community/professional, bigbudget/nobudget. All of that is really secondary to the one main question - will this increase audience numbers? I can understand and respect all of the reasons why anyone might disagree. And if, as a community, we decide that awards have more negatives than the possible positive, its fine with me if we don't have them. Again, I thank those people who have put time and effort into trying to create something for the sake of promoting our industry. My differences of opinion in the model in no way diminishes my respect.

Love to all, and especially Fletch as the god of communication,
BO