Hey Fletch,
You know what, I am not as eloquent as some of the others writing back to you, so I'll just say that I agree with the majority of the posts. Awards are a bad idea, at the same time I think that we need to get the theatre community to support the theatre community before we can rely on non theatre goers we are trying to catch. As a Milwaukee theatre artist you should be seeing everything, or at least trying to. I know that I am guilty of passing up a show because it's at a particular theatre, but I also know that I'm going to try and change this simply because theatre is theatre and it should be supported whether or not it's "my" kind of theatre. Anyway the point is we as a community need to come together and show support for each other and then others will follow.
Ken