13th Annual Suzi Bass Awards Announce Special Honorees
By: BWW News Desk Oct. 27, 2017
Atlanta professional theatre artists, producers and patrons gather to celebrate the 2016-2017 season of plays and musicals at the 13th Annual Suzi Bass Awards on Monday, November 6, 2017, at 7pm, doors open at 6pm. The event is being held at the Conant Performing Arts Center at Oglethorpe University, 4484 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30319.
Winners from among the nominated artists in 30 categories will take home the coveted award. Judges and Suzi Members have chosen recipients in performance, direction and design categories for plays, musicals, and theatre productions for young audiences. The Ceremony will honor the recipients of the Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Spirit of Suzi Award.
The ceremony will include live performances from the musicals nominated in the Production-Musical category. Performances will include numbers from Big Fish (Theatrical Outfit), The Bridges of Madison County (Aurora Theatre), Nobody Loves You (Horizon Theatre), The Prom (ALLIANCE THEATRE), and Troubadour (ALLIANCE THEATRE).
Tickets to the ceremony may be purchased online at www.suziawards.org for $50 per adult and $20 per student under 16. Discounts apply for Suzi Members and 2017 Nominees. All tickets are $60 at the door. The catered after-party is included in the ticket price.
Three Local Playwrights vie for Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award
The award, named after the primary founder of the Suzi Awards organization, recognizes an Atlanta-based playwright whose work (written or adapted) was produced by a professional Atlanta theatre in the preceding season. A committee of area educators, playwrights and theatre professionals read each of the plays and chose the recipient. Developing local works remains a priority within the professional Atlanta theatre community and there are ten plays in contention for this year's Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award.
The three submissions for the Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award are:
Another Mother by G. M. Lupo, produced by Essential Theatre
Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance is Required, by Topher Payne, produced by Georgia Ensemble Theatre
Troubadour, Conceived & Written by Janece Shaffer, Original Music by Kristian Bush
The 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award
From time to time, the Board of Directors of the Suzi Bass Awards may choose to recognize a member of the Metro Atlanta theatre community with a Lifetime Achievement Award. This award focuses on a body of work having a significant and long-term effect on the theatre community.
This year, the dynamic duo, Anita and Bob Farley of Georgia Ensemble Theatre, will receive the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Suzi Bass Board of Directors. Bob will retire at the end of the 2017-2018 season, at the end of Georgia Ensemble Theatre's 25th Anniversary Season.
A few highlights of his tenure and their partnership:
- By the end of the 2017-2018 theatre season they will have produced 174 productions over 25 seasons.
- The Farleys and the company have commissioned and premiered nine new plays, six of them by Atlanta playwright, Topher Payne.
- The holocaust drama, AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME has performed for over half a million students and teachers since 1997, twenty-one consecutive years. There are actors in the casts for this show now who were not even born when it began, and others who saw the production in their own school as the very first theatre experience in their lives.
- Georgia Ensemble has two performances on Saturdays, 4pm and 8pm. The Farleys serve the dinner between those shows and by the end of the 25th season, Anita and Bob will have prepared dinner and fed every cast, crew, and support staff in the theatre's history between those performances for a total of 240 meals. They have loved every minute of it.
The Spirit of Suzi Award
From time to time, the Board of Directors of the Suzi Bass Awards may choose to recognize a member of the Metro Atlanta theatre community with the Spirit of Suzi Award. The Spirit of Suzi is given to a person or organization that demonstrates qualities reflecting Suzi Bass herself.
Such qualities might include:
- Dedication to increasing the level of professionalism in the Atlanta Theatre Community;
- Selfless service to the Atlanta theatrical community through the development and support of theatre companies, professional artists, students of theatre, or new audiences;
- Consistent striving to better the working conditions of theatre artists, the support of audiences for theatre, or the environment for a strong and vibrant theatre community;
- True commitment to the joy of theatre as an avenue for self-expression, community empowerment, global connection, or cultural enrichment;
- Dedication to the belief that theatre can make a difference in Atlanta, and Atlanta theatre can make a difference in the world.
The 2017 Spirit of Suzi Award will be given to Lois Reitzes. The Board of Directors felt that Lois particularly embodies the last three bullet points and they are thrilled to honor her with this award. Joining WABE in 1979, and becoming the Program Director in 1992, Lois is, without a doubt, one of the most staunch arts advocates in this city. Her love of theatre and her support of the arts is evident in her City Lights show, where every single day, she and her team highlight the goings-on in arts across the city and across all disciplines.
More About The Farleys
The Farleys first met in January 1968 and have been together in life, and working together in the theatre profession, ever since. In the early 1970s they worked together at the ALLIANCE THEATRE when Bob was a resident Director, early in his career. Later in the 70s Anita helped the team at Alaska Repertory Theatre move the planning forward which resulted in the Rep's first wildly successful season. In 1992, the Farleys co-founded the Georgia Ensemble Theatre & Conservatory which began with a few classes for children and adults, and their first subscription season of three plays at the theatre's home in the Roswell Cultural Arts Center. Since then, they have built one of Atlanta's longest running and most successful professional theatre companies thanks to an intensely loyal audience, a supportive Board, and a dynamic and loyal staff. Georgia Ensemble Theatre is currently celebrating its 25th Silver Anniversary season and recently this past September fulfilled one of its major, long-awaited goals: the formation of a small Repertory company of Atlanta actors performing four productions over the next nine months for young people and teachers in every school district in the greater metropolitan Atlanta area.
More About Lois Reitzes
Lois Reitzes is Director of Arts and Cultural Programming for WABE-FM 90.1, the National Public Radio affiliate in Atlanta. She began working at the station in 1979 as a music programmer and announcer, and became Program Director in 1992. Weekdays at 11am, she hosts "City Lights," WABE's Arts & Culture Program. She also presents morning music on WABE's classical stream, serves as commentator and interviewer for WABE's Atlanta Symphony Orchestra broadcasts, and hosts "Spivey Soiree." Before coming to Atlanta, she worked at WFIU, in Bloomington, the National Public Radio affiliate licensed to Indiana University, where she pursued graduate study in Musicology. Ms. Reitzes holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University, where she was a piano student of Felix Ganz. Ms. Reitzes has been married to Donald Reitzes since 1976. They are the proud parents of Jacqueline (born 1981), Michael (born 1984), and Rex, a golden non-retriever. She believes that life began (and should continue) with Mozart. Her favorite philosopher is Mel Brooks. In addition to classical music, she loves Motown, Broadway and Blues. Reading is her favorite form of exercise.
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