A scene from the first Artsies Awards at the Firehouse Theatre (Photo courtesy David Timberline)
The Richmond Theater Critics Circle Awards, which recognizes achievement in stage craft during the past year, celebrates its 10th annual awards at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 9, at Virginia Rep’s November Theatre. Tickets, $20, are still available — the general theater-going public is invited —and can be purchased though the VirginiaRep box office or by phone at 804-282-2620.
It’s not all daring dresses and imaginative restyles of tuxedoes and tearful acceptances, because each year, proceeds go toward the Richmond Theatre Artists Fund, administrated by The Community Foundation, for the assistance of theater people who may have come into a time of need.
And you can count on fun and the unexpected. Don’t take my word for it; just look at this recap from 2016 provided by TVJerry/SiFTER.
In 2013, the balcony from “To Kill a Mockingbird” became the set for an actor’s rendition of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina.” The singer began back to the audience, and when turning, revealed himself as Michael Hawk in drag — to the loud approval of the audience. The 2015 host, Georgia Rogers Farmer, began the evening with a full drum line, brought two dancing Artsie awards onstage after intermission and ended the proceedings from the balcony, from which she gifted the gathered with prepackaged bacon. That was a pretty wild show.
Presenters have included, in 2010, the ladies of the Mother State Roller Derby, Sen. Tim Kaine and Anne Holton in 2011, and Nutzy the Flying Squirrel — mascot of the city’s baseball team — in 2012. One presenting pair consisted of singer-songwriter Susan Greenbaum (4'10") and University of Richmond basketball coach Chris Mooney (approx. 6'8"). During the 2012 show, Jason Roop, formerly of Style Weekly, and radio host Jack Lauterback did their presenter bit in bondage gear.
Serious moments arise, too. An “In Memoriam” segment featuring images of those theater people who exited this stage to enter the next. In 2016, Marie Goodman Hunter, an African-American actress, received the Liz Marks Award for Ongoing Contribution to Richmond Theater. She broke the color barrier in 1962 as a teacher at Fox Elementary. She described her storied career as "an actress who just happened to be black" to the delight of the audience, which gave a standing ovation.
Before any of this, a generation of theater people’s efforts came into the province of The Phoebes. These awards, bestowed by longtime theater critic Roy Proctor, were rolled out on the front page of the fat Richmond Times-Dispatch Sunday Arts & Leisure section and by turns anticipated, dreaded and ridiculed. Those who received favorable ink, though, didn’t mind so much.
Proctor, who joined the Richmond News Leader in 1974, became, as explained by the Times-Dispatch ombudsman upon Proctor’s 2004 retirement, “the afternoon newspaper's arts editor, reviewing movies, theater and visual arts and writing a weekly Critic at Large column. In that column in 1976, he announced the recipients of his first Phoebe awards. The awards were bestowed on members of the Richmond theater community for best production, best actor, best actress, etc. Awards must have a name — the Oscars, Tonys, Emmys — and Proctor called his award Phoebe, after the family's poodle, already playing in the Happy Hunting Ground.” Honorees received certificates until the 1992 merger of the News Leader with the Times-Dispatch.
The mid-1990s formation of the Richmond Alliance of Professional Theaters (RAPT), which began out of a working committee of the old Firehouse Theatre Project (full disclosure: a company whose founding I was in on, and the committee I formed) caused theater representatives to consider a way to award theatrical excellence that would also promote theater-going.
While interest existed, the mechanism didn’t, nor the energy to take on yet another project by small and often understaffed nonprofit companies.
Theater participants Amy Berlin and Ann Bucci approached RAPT with a “people’s choice” version, but, Berlin remembers, “RAPT didn't want performers competing against each other, so they said no. We were told ‘Art is not a competitive sport.’ ” Berlin, an actor, director and writer, wryly adds, “Saved me a lot of work.”
Critic and general theater enthusiast David Timberline started writing for Style Weekly in 1999. His experiences convinced him that somebody, somehow should take note of what was occurring on Richmond’s stages. He recalls, “Almost from the start, I thought it'd be cool to have some kind of collaborative awards; I had a conversation with [actor] Scott Wichmann about it soon after I first met him in 2000.”
As colleagues, Timberline met and became friends with most of the city's reviewers, and also with longtime theater observers John Porter and Jerry Williams. After Timberlake proposed the idea to Times-Dispatch critic Susan Haubenstock, and she liked the concept, the idea was easier for others to accept. What also gave such a gala occasion a reason to exist that transcended the giving of awards was establishing the Richmond Theatre Artist Fund.
RAPT’S meetings moved around to various theaters and in 2008, Timberline made a presentation to the members at the HATTheatre. (RAPT evolved into the present RVA Theatre Alliance.)
He kept the notes of his four-point pitch, that made clear plans were already in motion, that the driving concept was to promote the entire theater community, and the allowance that having not done this before, mistakes were bound to occur.
“Mary Burruss had started writing for Style,” Timberline explained via email," and I talked to her about the idea. She was also a producer in town so thought she could get a venue to donate the space for us to do something.”
The first meeting with all of the critics was in July 2008. The first awards went off less than four months later, Oct. 19, hosted by what was then the Firehouse Theatre Project, now the Firehouse Theater.
The Richmond Theater Critics Circle started with five members but reached nine by 2012, eight of whom could vote on the RTCC awards. Expansions and refinements continued, the award show became more elaborate and Richmond’s theater grew, too.
“We didn't really know what to expect the first year,” Timberline says, “and there was even talk about canceling if there wasn't enough interest. But as it happened, there was more interest than there was space in the Firehouse Theatre.” Sponsors included C.F. Sauer (where Timberline then worked) and YY Salon (which provided 100 swag bags with hair products).
Here's a little of what that first year looked and sounded like, here with Jason Marks (begins left) and Landon Nagel.
That first year, the awards didn’t possess an actual name. Mary Burruss remembers sitting next to Timberline and trying to figure out what to call them. “All these writers, and we couldn’t come up with a pithy, clever name,” she says. “We were all stumped.” Then, on the night, VirginiaRep’s founding Artistic Director Bruce Miller received an honor, and at the podium he sought to thank the critics for what he’d received. ‘Thank you for this Ratsy, or this Arty.’ And Burruss elbowed Timberline, exclaiming sotto voce, “That’s it! We’ll call it the Artsies!"
The first year’s host was actor Jill Bari Steinberg, who performed the role with her own material. “From then on, the night was scripted, but presenters have often wandered far afield of the script,” Timeberline says. Former television anchor Gene Cox and Mason (then a Richmond disc jockey) were among those who went off script and stayed. The show got longer, and then shorter, and now comes in at about two and a half hours.
The running time includes emotional highlights, as in 2016, when Timberline received an Artsy. Amy Wight, who’s produced or co-produced nine of the events, managed to somehow keep that moment secret. “Melissa Johnston Price, [writer] Rich Griset, and I co-presented an Artsy to him at the podium for his vision, leadership and service,” she recalls.
Wight says of her responsibility, “It’s always a delicate balance to negotiating between what your team wants while respecting the financial constraints of the hosting theater.” Some of the anxiety is alleviated by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation that assists with budgetary matters, thus freeing up the proceeds to go direct to the Theater Fund, which today stands at $100,000, and since the inception, 15 members of the theater community have called upon its assistance.
Come for the awards, and then go over to the Quirk Hotel for the after-party, hosted by Quirk and the Modlin Center for the Arts.