Show & Tell

And the Award Goes To …

By Mark Bretz

In January 2020, the St. Louis Theater Circle announced its nominations for the eighth annual St. Louis Theater Circle Awards, which were to be held that March. With the rapid expansion of COVID-19, however, that live ceremony was canceled.

Members of the Theater Circle (including me, representing Ladue News, and reviewers for numerous other local media outlets) thought the event would not take place. However, HEC-TV stepped forward, and in April 2020, it presented a virtual version of the awards on its Facebook page, website and YouTube channel with great success.

With the continued onslaught of the pandemic and the resultant cancellation of most local theatrical productions in 2020, there was no ceremony by the Theater Circle last year. However, as the pandemic eased a bit, theater returned to a “new normal” in May 2021.

When we considered whether we could hold our ninth annual ceremony in 2022, we looked once again at an in-person event, which would take place at the Loretto-Hilton Center, home of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. We planned to honor the best in local theater for work done in the first three months of 2020, before the pandemic essentially shut down theater, and the last eight months of 2021, when local companies resumed offering presentations on local stages.

Once again, though, it was decided that an in-person ceremony could not be safely held. Instead, HEC-TV has agreed to create its own production. The arts and education channel is planning to stream a virtual version of the ceremony at 7p.m. on March 28 on its website and YouTube channel.

In a normal year, the Theater Circle considers between 110 and 130 productions by local professional theater groups and opera companies as its mission “to honor outstanding achievements in St. Louis professional theater.” Due to the pandemic, however, for the years 2020 and 2021, we have approximately 75 shows to consider for both of those years combined.

Still, we’re looking forward to bringing the ninth annual awards ceremony to an audience of theater artists, patrons of the many fine companies that perform professionally on local stages and other interested viewers.

For this year’s ceremony, the Theater Circle has also revised the categories of its acting awards to be more inclusive. Those categories now are based on genders of the characters in the scripts rather than on the genders of the performers. For example, the category formerly titled “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy” now is termed “Outstanding Lead Performer in a Comedy, Female or Non-Binary Role.”

As with our previous awards ceremonies, there are categories for comedies, dramas, musicals and operas in both performing and technical areas. The Rep and The Muny lead all companies in number of nominations for this year’s awards.

To view the streaming ceremony of the ninth annual St. Louis Theater Circle Awards on March 28, visit hecmedia.org or facebook.com/hectv. A complete list of nominees is available on the Theater Circle’s Facebook page.

We hope you’ll join us as we salute the best in local professional theater for the years 2020 and 2021. ln