BroadwayWorld Announces Revised Nominations and Voting Process for 2015 New York Cabaret Awards

Since BroadwayWorld.com launched its New York Cabaret Awards in 2012, the process of voting on preliminary nominees and final nominees for recognition in approximately 20 categories has been open to anyone registering to vote on the highly-trafficked entertainment website. For it's 4th Annual Cabaret Awards nomination period-this year beginning after Thanksgiving 2015--BroadwayWorld will now put the nomination process into the hands of its cabaret show reviewing staff (Alix Cohen, David Clarke, John Hoglund, Andrew Martin, Billie Roe, and Remy Block) and select industry experts, led by BWW Cabaret Editor and Awards Show Producer Stephen Hanks (who has also hosted the show since its inception). Once the final nominees are announced, the general public will again be offered the chance to vote online for the best performers and shows of the past year.

"We think that having our reviewing team and other cabaret experts select the final nominees in the various categories will give the nominations enhanced credibility and make that part of the process less a popularity contest," says Hanks. "Cabaret devotees, fans, and the public will still be able to cast votes on a final ballot."

This isn't the first time BWW has fine-tuned its cabaret awards nomination process. Prior to last year, the public was asked to suggest nominees in the various categories. For the 2014 Awards, BWW offered an extensive preliminary ballot for online voting and the top vote getters made the final ballot. "While that part of the process was extremely popular and brought the BWW site a lot of traffic, we found that there were enough irregularities in the voting that we no longer wanted to leave anything to chance," explains Hanks. "There were a few preliminary ballot candidates who clearly weren't following the rules and found ways to pad their vote totals. For this year's final ballot, we want to recognize those cabaret performers who our staff feels are the most deserving, not those who can get the most people to vote for them-whether they've seen their shows or not. We feel this is a good compromise in that the public will still be able to vote for the winners." Hanks adds that the final ballot will likely have anywhere from six to 12 nominees in each category.

Cabaret fans will still get to chime in on one aspect of the nomination process. This year, BWW will ask the public to suggest five "Favorite Performers" in celebrity and non-celebrity categories. The top-10 vote getters will become nominees for two "Most Popular Cabaret Performer" categories on the final ballot.

In his role as BWW's New York Cabaret Editor (after two and a half years as lead reviewer), this year Hanks has cultivated a team of reviewers with varying years of experience and sensibilities. "I think what sets our Awards apart from other cabaret awards programs is that our reviewers have different interests among the genres within cabaret and that allows us to cover a wider range of the cabaret scene-whether it's catching Broadway performers doing the Great American Songbook at 54 Below or alt-cabaret acts at Joe's Pub or the Duplex," adds Hanks. "Will we be able to see and review everybody? That's impossible, but we do feel we'll be able to consider a plethora of candidates for the final ballot. A deserving performer won't be ignored because he or she didn't enter their name for consideration, or a friend or a club didn't recommend them."

As in previous years, 2015 Cabaret Award candidates will have had to perform at least three shows from November 2014 through October 2015, except for the "Special One-Show Special Event" category. Hanks also points out that again this year, BWW will bestow special "Editor's Awards" for categories such as "Best CD Release," "Excellence in Musicianship or Songwriting," and "Dedication and Devotion to the Art of Cabaret."

"So far, 2015 has been another great year for New York Cabaret and BroadwayWorld's reviewers have been at all the clubs to chronicle it," says Hanks. "And we think this will be another great year for the BWW Awards. We can't wait to see who will win them."

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