San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Makes 2020/2021 Theatre Awards Announcement

More than eighteen months of theater closures put a halt to the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle's Annual "Excellence in Theatre" Awards Gala, typically celebrated late in March for the preceding calendar year. The group hasn't hosted a live gala since 2019.

The SFBATCC will not host a live gala this year either, instead opting to combine first-quarter 2020 and second-half 2021 into one season for awards purposes.

The group's 45th "Excellence in Theatre" Awards will be a virtual event again this year. Nominees will be announced in late March with awardees to be announced by mid-April, according to SFBATCC Chief Information Officer Harry Duke.

"Our members are required to input their nomination information into our database within a reasonable period of time after attending a performance so we have all the necessary data', Duke stated. "We've merged the databases for 2020 and 2021 and the calculation process to determine the nominees has begun."

The 45th SFBATCC "Excellence in Theatre" Awards will be their first to eliminate gender distinction in the performance categories. Awards will be given for Principal and Featured performances in dramas, comedies, and musicals. The Ensemble Award will now be presented in those three divisions as well.

Theater companies have reopened with careful attention to vaccination status of both performers and audience, particularly in the North Bay, with the rest of the region gradually coming back to a normal production schedule.

"Should the recovery continue, we hope that by this time in 2023 we will be preparing for a return to a live gala," said SFBATCC president Barry Willis. The Circle website will be regularly updated to keep the entire Bay Area theater community informed.

The SFBATCC is a private 501(c)(6) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and serving theatres of all types and sizes in the greater region by recognizing excellence and outstanding achievement in the field. Active since 1976, the Circle consists of reviewers covering theatre in all nine Bay Area counties, across various media, who are voted into membership by existing members based on the quality and consistency of their reviews, as well as members who, through their participation in the community as directors, designers, performers, non-reviewing media members, etc., bring an additional level of critical perspective and experience or other theatrically-related background to the Circle.