Theatre Puget Sound Calls for 2nd Annual Melissa Hines Award Nominations for Outstanding Theatre Practitioner

Theatre Puget Sound (TPS) is accepting submissions for the 2nd annual Melissa Hines Award recipient. Anyone can nominate an individual who has provided exceptional service to the Puget Sound theatre community throughout the last year. In order to have your unsung hero considered, please send a short essay to melissahinesaward@gregoryawards.org

Take a moment to consider the technicians, volunteers, stage managers, understudies, and administrators who rarely receive public notice. This award, along with 17 others will be presented at the 5th Annual Gregory Awards being held at The Neptune Theatre on Monday, October 28, 2013 at 7:30pm.

Send a 200 word (or less) nomination to mailto:melissahinesaward@gregoryawards.org before October 8, 2013.

Tickets for the awards ceremony are ON SALE NOW to the public http://www.gregoryawards.org/2013/tickets

About: The Gregory Awards are proud to present the Melissa Hines Award for Outstanding Theatre Practitioner! The recipient of this "behind the scenes" award will be honored for his or her involvement with theatre in Washington State over the last year. This honor is named in memory of the late Melissa Hines. She was the stalwart managing director of the Empty Space Theatre, participated on arts boards, and directed cultural activities in Seattle. This category is intended to honor those dedicated individuals who make theatre possible, enabling artists to do their art, but who often are not recognized by curtain calls, reviews or awards. This category may include production crew and stage management, volunteers, administrators, board members, donors and patrons.

As Misha Berson stated in Melissa's obituary on April 11, 2011 in the Seattle Times, "They don't get the audience applause and the critical acclaim. But without the hard work and passionate commitment of behind the-scenes people like Melissa Hines, Seattle would not have the vibrant performing arts scene the city is celebrated for."

About The Gregory Awards

The Gregory Awards are a Theatre Puget Sound program that celebrates the achievements of the greater Puget Sound area theatre community. The program and ceremony are an opportunity to celebrate theatre, to honor the outstanding achievements of local artists, and to raise the visibility of the local theatre scene as a whole. Opening up nominations to the TPS membership and the general public ensures that the final list of nominees on the ballot is truly reflective of the outstanding work taking place throughout the region. The Gregory Awards began in 1998 as the Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award. Over the following 11 years, it honored individuals who spent much of their careers strengthening theatre in our region. In 2009, while continuing this tradition, six annual categories were incorporated into the awards program. Since then, the total number of awards presented each year has grown, and currently stands at 18.

For more information on the process, visit the website: http://nominate.gregoryawards.org/about/eligibility/overall

The Gregory Awards are named in honor of Gregory A. Falls (1922-1997), a former chair of the UW School of Drama, who is often credited with creating Seattle's vibrant theatre scene. Falls left the UW in 1971 to devote more time to ACT Theatre (which he had founded in 1965), though he stayed on as a part-time UW faculty member until 1976. He served as president of The National Theatre Conference and Washington Association of Theatre Artists. In 1994, Falls was inducted into the prestigious College of Fellows of the American Theatre.

About Theatre Puget Sound

Theatre Puget Sound (TPS) is a leadership and service organization founded in 1997 to advocate for the region's growing arts community's causes, and administer much-needed services. TPS is now one of the Northwest's leading arts advocacy and leadership organizations, providing programming and services that benefit both the theatre community and the larger regional arts community. TPS has a two-fold mission: to promote the spiritual and economic necessity of theatre to the public, and to unify and strengthen the theatre community through programs, resources, and services. TPS membership includes more than 1,700 individual artists and 140 performing arts organizations. Furthermore, their Space for the Arts program, Arts Crush, and educational programming serves more than 200 non-theatre arts organizations and innumerable individual artists annually. In addition to ARTS CRUSH, TPS sponsors workshops and seminars, regional auditions, manages affordable rehearsal and performance space in the Armory (formerly the Seattle Center House), produces the annual Gregory Awards, and coordinates and promotes other events which strengthen and celebrate our local community.

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