A WORK IN PROGRESS!!! NOT YET FOR PUBLICATION! SHHHHHHH!!!

With all the ongoing challenges facing the LA theatre community, I’ve still gotta say it’s been a smash of a year—especially for playwrights and directors, it seems, as I see how my 34th annual TicketHolder Awards have unfolded.

It’s clearly a given that Best Season honors should go to Rogue Machine. I begin compiling and adding to my nomination choices from the beginning of each year and now that this year’s choices have all come together, even I am gobsmacked that the first friggin’ five shows on my list for Best Production were all mounted by this one prolific and uber-talented company. What a remarkable achievement!

Although I’ve never before awarded special Living Legend recognition, how could I not this year as Dick Van Dyke, someone I’ve known and loved since our days working together in Bye Bye Birdie in 1960 when he was 35 and I was 13, turned a remarkable 100 years old on December 13th. Dick is one of my life’s most exalted mentors, a guy with an unstoppable energy and zest for life who has been an inspiration to me for the past 65 years. Huzzah!

There was a puzzlement in my mind as to where to put any recognition for the phenomenal Stereophonic, which played here at the Pantages after becoming the Best Play Tony Award winner in New York last year. Certainly, it could be categorized as a play with music, but in light of the incredible (yet too briefly featured) score by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler and the knockout musical performances by its stellar ensemble cast, to me it fit better for Best Musical consideration. And if Anora and The Substance could receive nominations in last year’s Golden Globes as Best Musical or Comedy, my decision is a minor one in comparison, right? Besides, in this LA theatre season chockful with incredible choices to recognize, there was more room here in the Best Musical section—a side benefit afforded me for 34 years compiling my own awards, so fuck it.