— छह हजार एक सौ चौदह —
Yesterday was the third time in as many years I joined Shobhit for the
Gregory Awards ceremony, Theatre Puget Sound's annual event that is basically the regional, Pacific Northwest version of the Tony Awards. It awards and celebrates excellents in regional live theatre. By last year, Shobhit was their part-time Finance Manager, which he still is. They have since, however, let the previous Executive Director go and hired a new one, a woman named
Makaela, who was clearly popular with this crowd when invited onstage at the ceremony last night. Shobhit explained she has long been an active part of the theatre community here, so a large percentage of that crowd would have already known her.
Anyway, Shobhit had checks to hand out to people who had been hired for the event: the host, two different hired photographers, a Project Manager, and more. He decided to put the checks inside envelopes with a handwritten thank-you note, but because he doesn't like his handwriting, he asked me to write them out for him. I barely had time for this once I got home at about 5:00; I would have been maybe five minutes later even than that, had I not caught a bus at Broadway.
I don't especially think this should be a responsibility falling to me, especially in the hurried state we were in, but whatever. I would actually agree that my handwriting is better. That said, he had all of the notes already written out for me to copy, and even though he had written the phrase "Gregory Awards" on each of them, after a couple of notes he insisted I change them to "Gregorys Awards." Never mind the clear grammatical awkwardness this caused, I was like: "Are you sure?" because I could swear it was
Gregory Awards. I should have pushed back harder; I could have just brought up the email confirmation I had that read,
Your ticket(s) to the 26th Annual Gregory Awards. Not
Gregorys, which I suspect Shobhit was thinking it should be because of common shorthand people might use, as with the "Oscars." But, it was written as
Gregory Awards literally everywhere: signage at the venue; on the program; etc. I pointed this out shortly after we sat in the theater, and just just gave me an exaggerated shrug. It's too bad, because even though I doubt any single one of them will judge him for it, it's still going to make him look like a foreign-born person who does not speak English well.
Maybe I'm the one who should learn not to care about that. The sticking point for me is that it was so easily avoidable, and I stupidly just went along with his insistence that it be phrased that way.
Anyway, there were seven checks and therefore seven short notes to write, along with writing names on the outsides of envelopes. Shobhit already had a plate of leftover lasagna pre-heated for me to eat as soon as I was done with the notes. I got home a couple of minutes after 5:00 and he had wanted to leave by 5:25. We were just a couple of minutes later than that, but thanks to the time spent on the notes, it did mean I had to wolf down that lasagna as fast as I could. I felt engorged when I was done. I suppose it helped that we then hoofed it for the 20-minute walk to Town Hall, where the event was held for the second year in a row—a venue that works well for it, certainly far better than the TPS theater they held it at in Seattle Center in 2024.
Okay, but here's one complaint, and I honestly don't know if this was a general issue or if it's just a me issue, and if the latter, if I an just getting more sensitive to high-decibel noise the older I get or what. The event is scheduled from 6 to 10 p.m., with the first hour just schmoozing in the lobby. Last year they had food refreshments; this year there were only drinks, which was a big reason Shobhit had the lasagna ready for me, which I appreciated. Even though this crowd does not completely fill the theater space, it comes relatively close—and everyone packed into the lobby space until 7:00 gets
really crowded, so with people doing no more than just talking loudly enough to be heard over everyone else, there were moments when I really wished I had ear plugs with me.
This was kind of ironic because I actually brought ear plugs with me to the Bee Gees cover band concert in Olympia on Friday but never needed them. I did
not bring them last night and wished I had them. And during the actual show, there were times that were fine, but nearly every time someone won an award, the crowd burst into cheers loud enough that I started plugging my ears.
This is hardly a new thing for me, incidentally. The earliest I can remember needing to plug my ears because of the decibel level in a venue was when I went to see
Six the Musical with Danielle in 2023. That was at the Paramount, and I had a blast at that show, but still was consitently putting my fingers in my ears. Danielle asked me more than once, "Are you okay?" and I just said yes; as long as I plugged my ears, I was. But, ever since then, I have generally been diligent about taking ear plugs with me, at least to arena concerts—which, granted,
Six the Musical was not. I need to start keeping ear plugs handy at basically any and all events I attend with large crowds that are packed in tight.
— छह हजार एक सौ चौदह —
— छह हजार एक सौ चौदह —
Anyway. I wasn't nearly as "schmoozy" as Shobhit was, though he pulled me into the lobby well before doors technically opened, and even had me help him tear checks apart and put them into the aforementioned envelopes, after Ry signed them all. He also bought us both cocktails at the drinks bar, as I was especially interested once I saw they were serving Moscow Mules—which, honestly, was just an okay drink. Shobhit did get discounted prices because he had bought "VIP" tickets for us, which he decided he'd rather do than either work or volunteer the event in order to get a free ticket. There were also tables of cups of champaigne and I had one of those. Shobhit also had a flask of whiskey that he brought and I took two or three small swigs from that.
I kind of followed Shobhit around a bit, though not talking to a lot of people; Shobhit did introduce me to Makaela, and then did again a good half hour or 45 minutes later, already forgetting he had already done so. I had also downloaded a digital library copy of the novel
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan, which I had also done right before leaving for Albuquerque but then got the physical book shortly after getting home; the digital copy expired recently but I re-checked it out and it became available quickly. I prefer a physical book but the digital option becomes convenient in times like these, where I can sit on a bench along the wall and read on my phone and look less obviously conspicuous than I would with an actual book in my hands. (Side note: I'm already settled on this book being a disappointment due to its fundamental implausibility, but I'll save the details on that for my Book Log. It's still compellingly readable, which is why I have not just abandoned reading it.)
The house opened at 7:00, and like last year, I jumped at getting in there quickly so I could get a good seat, one from which I could get decent photos. I could have had as many as 33 photos, but I deleted some because they just weren't that good; I kept 29, so that's
how many shots I have in this year's full Gregory Awards photo album—three of those are fun video clips (including a "Footloose" dance number the host opened with, seen below), and about 15 were of people onstage. That doesn't count the huge group shots of all the awards recipients that was taken at the end. This makes it my
second-largest Gregory Awards photo album out of the three to date, though it should be noted that among the 34 shots from last year, six were of the exterior of the Town Hall Seattle venue. This year I took just one exterior shot, right as we were leaving after the ceremony ended at 10:00.
This means the ceremony itself lasts for two and a half hours, starting at 7:00 and with a target end time of 10:00; the host made many comments on how successfully they were keeping it moving. They handed out about 35 awards, and only a couple of "life achievement" type awards allowed for any kind of speech; in every other case—as in previous years—they would only announce the nominees, then the winner, and allow the winner to walk across the stage, be given the award, and then walk right through a door backstage. This was precisely how they gave out so many awards within the space of two and a half hours, and still made room for two notable acceptance speeches and three or four live performances (including one during the obligatory "In Memoriam" section, as with all awards shows).
I did find myself wondering about the voting body for these awards. Who votes for these? How many of them are there? Well, they have
60-100 trained nominators, who watch shows and score them all on a 1-100 scale; the show with the highest average score gets the award. Now, these are separate from the voting body for the "Members Choice" awards, which are voted on by TPS members. Now, you'd think the latter would be a larger group, but Ry noted onstage last night that before the pandemic TPS had something like 160 members, and now there are 70. Also, surely none of these people see every show, especially across the region, as TPS includes theatre organizations in basically every county that surrounds the Puget Sound (this could include around 6 or 8 counties).
I actually did get a little curious about becoming a Nominator after last year's ceremony, but notwithstanding getting comp tickets to all these shows, it would just be a time commitment I can't really make. I do love live theatre, but my passion is still film first and foremost, and I'm not really interested in sidelining that passion for time spent with live theatre. I do wonder if perhaps I shold become a member, although the
lowest tier there is $99 annually. I was already considering becoming a Tasveer member, the
lowest tier of which is $60 annually for an individual membership. I'd love to support both, but am not convinced it's good for my overall budget, which is already super tight due to all the saving I do for both domestic and international travel. Sure, this works out to an average of $13.25 a month combined, but I already have too many annual payments I'm tracking in my budget, and even at that seemingly small amount, I would have to adjust how much I am putting into savings. I'll still spend some time thinking about it.
The guy who directed the play Shobhit was let go from in the spring was there, and Shobhit actively avoided him; I don't blame him at all. Apparently one of the actors in that show saw Shobhit, give him a hug, and said they should not have done that to him. So that was nice. I found some comfort in the fact that said show only got one or two nominations overall, and neither was for direction or acting. Given the relatively small regional theatre community here and the assumption that most notable plays probably get nominations for these awards, I found that at least somewhat telling.
I do also wonder, though: how many shows annually are even eligible for Gregory Award nominations?
About 130, at least as of 2019; that was pre-pandemic so the number could easily be lower now—granted, probably higher now than three years ago. How many theater organizations would that include? Well, you have to be a Theatre Puget Sound member organization, of which there are
more than 200, judging by the website member directory. (Ry must have been referring to individual memberships when discussing the dropoff from pre-pandemic membership levels.)
In any case, all this stuff is clearly interesting to me, and I love that Shobhit has this connection which does sometimes get me free tickets to things. This is unconfirmed as of yet but we may actually skip Action Movie Night this week in favor of a play, which I'm fine with as the guy chosen to choose the movie this week and all three of his previous picks have sucked. I don't miss Action Movie Night as a rule unless we're traveling, but I had already been thinking of going a bit less after how often I wind up stuck in a movie that makes me want to tear my eyeballs out.
— छह हजार एक सौ चौदह —
[posted 12:32pm]
