Big Ideas

I’ve asked several theater practitioners here in DC to outline their vision for an event to replace the Helen Hayes Awards. (See the inaugural post in the series here.) The following contribution is from Thembi Duncan. ——————————————- I view the world through an African-American, female, LGBT lens. All of my work begins somewhere near the intersection of those identities, so I often find myself approaching theater from the deficit position, from the outsider’s perspective. I gravitate toward the stories of marginalized people for whom the very act of fighting to be seen and heard can easily become a full-time endeavor. I’ve been a member of the D.C. theater community for about fifteen years, and there are numerous institutions and individuals to whom I have strong professional and emotional connections. Then there’s the larger beast, the theater community itself, which treats me like an outs

I’ve asked several theater practitioners here in DC to outline their vision for an event to replace the Helen Hayes Awards. (See the inaugural post in the series here.) The following contribution is from Lee Liebeskind. ——————————————- I have been thinking about the Helen Hayes Awards for a long time: more so in the wake of Nelson Presley’s article about the potential split into two tiers. The question that has been stirring in my mind for a while is:  Do I care? Do I care about awards at all? About theatreWashington and Helen Hayes and any of it? Though I often answer with a flippant No, the truth of the matter is that I do care. Not about some trophy or award—my ego likes recognition, of course, but I’d rather get that from my peers. No… what I care about is community. From Arena Stage to Landless Theatre, from Signature to Rorschach, from Imagination Stage to Constellation Theatre, we hav

I’ve asked several theater practitioners here in DC to outline their vision for an event to replace the Helen Hayes Awards. (See the inaugural post in the series here.) The following contribution is from Kevin Finkelstein. ——————————————- According to its website, theatreWashington currently has 90 member theaters. Of those 90 members, only 27 received at least one Helen Hayes Award nomination in 2013. That’s 30%—the other 70% got no recognition—and that, I believe, is the primary reason we need to fix the awards. I also believe, furthermore, that the only way we can make that fix—the only way we can recognize excellence among the other 70%—is to separate the awards into two tiers. My reasoning begins with an analysis of the judges. Chad Bauman, the former marketing director of Arena Stage, wrote an outstanding piece for DC Theatre Scene last year about being a Helen Hayes judge. He didn’t f

I’ve asked several theater practitioners here in DC to outline their vision for an event to replace the Helen Hayes Awards. (See the inaugural post in the series here.) The following contribution is from Hannah Hessel. ——————————————- It is important for me to note, at the outset of this blog post, that while I only speak for myself, I’m in a somewhat unique position here in the DC area theater community in that I have worked for theaters at all ends of the scale. Currently, I seem to be doing it all at the same time.  My full-time job is at the large Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC); my artistic home for the past 7 years has been at the small Forum Theatre; and I recently founded Project Gym, a space in which independent artists come together to grow their creative muscles. At the same time, I have never been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award, and no matter what changes are ahead, I don’t expect

There’s been more than a little bit of angst the last few months—angst that reached a bit of a crescendo recently—about the future of the Helen Hayes Awards. As a member of the theatreWashington Board of Governors, I’ve been privileged to be part of some heavy-duty conversations about that future, all filled (to my estimation) with well-meaning people trying to wrestle with difficult ideas and complicated emotions and widely-varied visions about how to serve the DC theater community at large. To date, however, despite great effort—much more even than I’m aware of, I’m sure—we don’t seem to have arrived at any clarity. Moreover, there’s been a bit of heat building, too: particularly great disaffection in response to a perceived lack of transparency and a devaluing of the city’s smaller theaters. These are troubling days. (For the record: my experience with theatreWashington suggests that the organization does actually value inclusiveness—we have