HOME IS SWEET SORROW Earns 10 AUDELCO Nominations; Thompson-Scretching to Receive Legacy Award

The Audience Development Committee, Inc. (AUDELCO) has officially announced the nominees for the 54th Annual Vivian Robinson/AUDELCO Recognition Awards for Excellence in Black Theatre, honoring Shining Star Productions and the American Theatre of Actors (ATA) with a staggering 10 nominations for Anne L. Thompson-Scretching’s gripping Southern drama, Home Is Sweet Sorrow.

Recognized across artistic, directorial, acting, and technical categories, the production stands as one of the most celebrated presentations of the 2025–2026 Off-Off-Broadway season. The production earned nominations for:

• Best Play: Home Is Sweet Sorrow (Shining Star Productions 
  and American Theatre of Actors)
• Playwright: 
  Anne L. Thompson-Scretching
• Director of a Play: 
  Anne L. Thompson-Scretching
• Lead Actor in a Play: Layton Lamell
• Lead Actor in a Play: Patricia Fields
• Featured Actor in a Play: Kevin Leonard
• Featured Actress in a Play: Joy Foster
• Sound Design: Liam Riordan
• Costume Design: ESQ
• Set Design: 
  Anne L. Thompson-Scretching

The 54th Annual AUDELCO 'Viv' Awards will take place on Monday, November 16, 2026. Established in 1973 by Vivian Robinson, AUDELCO honors outstanding achievements in Black theatre, cultivating awareness, recognition, and vibrant audience engagement across the performing arts.

AWARDS CEREMONY & TICKET INFORMATION

The 54th Annual AUDELCO Recognition Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, November 16, 2026. In order to vote for the nominated artists, supporters and company members may join as a 'Friend of AUDELCO' at www.audelco.org.

ABOUT HOME IS SWEET SORROW

Serving as the stirring conclusion to Anne L. Thompson-Scretching’s lauded Blood Trilogy (preceded by A Lesson in Blood and A Long Way From Home), Home Is Sweet Sorrow confronts the generational reverberations of family secrets, systemic oppression, and Southern heritage. Through unflinching dialogue and authentic emotional depth, Thompson-Scretching lays bare the complexities of race, loyalty, and redemption, cementing the trilogy’s place as a seminal narrative in modern American theater.

ABOUT ANNE L. THOMPSON-SCRETCHING

Born and raised in the Van Dyke Projects of Brownsville, Brooklyn, Anne L. Thompson-Scretching is a celebrated veteran playwright, director, and set designer whose career spans decades of relentless artistic truth-telling. Having overcome severe dyslexia in childhood, she transformed personal adversity into an extraordinary literary voice dedicated to portraying nuanced, often painful, historical and social truths.

Thompson-Scretching made theater history as the first Black female artist to receive four prestigious Jean Dalrymple Awards in four distinct disciplines: comedy (Four Men on a Couch), drama (You Shouldn't Have Told, which went on to enjoy an Off-Broadway run), classic (The Fall from Grace), and period drama (A Lesson in Blood). From examining the Tulsa Race Massacre in The Resurrection to unearthing Southern racial tensions in The Blood Trilogy, Thompson-Scretching remains one of New York theater’s most vital and uncompromising visionaries.