BTW.....

By the way.....

It's the season for award shows. We just saw the Golden Globes, and will see the Oscars in a couple of weeks. There were the SAG awards, or something like that on TV last weekend.

Well, in St. Louis community theatre world, it is the Arts for Life Awards. These awards are given to the best musical show in St. Louis done by a non-profit, non-professional community theatre group for the year. There are classifications for adult shows and for youth shows. They give the usual awards, best actor/actress, best supporting actor/actress, best cameo actor/actress, best comedic actor/actress, best actor/actress in a non-singing role. Then there is the best show award, and the production awards for best director, set design, musical directions, sound, lights,choreography and costumes.

If you have a goal in life to work for, it always is sweet if you actually make that goal. One of my goals in life was to be nominated by Arts for Life for the best costume design for one of the shows I costumed . For 2010, I did receive the nomination for best costume design for "The Producers". Actually, this show nabbed 13 nominations, which is the second best of all the shows who received nominations. Many have commented on how well our show was done, the elements that were great, so we have high hopes to take home some "hardware" on June 5, which is the date of the awards banquet. But there is high competition, so nothing is for certain!

The week before, our Hawthorne Players theatre group had their own awards banquet. These same categories are judged by the members, choosing the best of all of the shows that the group does during the year. Each production category is given an award, BUT THERE IS NO CATEGORY FOR COSTUMING. I'm not sure why not, but it has been a puzzlement to me why not. Costumers really do spend a lot of time working on shows, so why aren't they considered important enough to be recognized?

Again, many of the players and production team from "The Producers" won for being the best of the three within our own group. The director always gets a discretionary award to give to someone who was on the team who didn't receive an award, or who especially contributed to the show. Well, the Producers director gave that award to me!

So, I'm getting my "strokes" lately for my costuming work, and it feels mighty fine. I'm planning my gown for the red carpet walk for June 5, and will have my acceptance speech ready, just in case. I'll savor these moments, they really are kind of cool!