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Sixth annual Orgie Theater Awards presented at first (annual?) physical ceremony

Posted in Unscripted blog by Kris Vire on Apr 20, 2011 at 1:21am

The willfully anonymous body that presents the Orgie Theatre Awards held its first live ceremony last night at Uptown's The Spot, after five years of announcing its picks via faceless emails to the press. The committee itself remains faceless; the Orgies asked Annoyance regulars Seth Dodson and Kellen Alexander to host the show, along with a masked equivalent of the celeb kids who hand out the Golden Globes. (In another first, the Orgies had actual statuettes to present.)

As quasi-outsiders to Chicago's theater scene, sketch comics Dodson and Alexander were charmingly discombobulated, offering up off-the-cuff banter alongside prewritten fake "nominees" for each of the night's awards. While most of the honorees were either present or had a proxy on hand to speak for them, the awarding itself went quickly; the hosts handed out 18 Orgies in about an hour. The full list, in order of presentation, is after the jump.

Musical Direction - Andra Velis Simon - Boojum! - Caffeine Theatre and Chicago Opera Vanguard

Playwriting - David Isaacson - Casanova Takes a Bath - Theater Oobleck

Fight Choreography - Greg Poljacik - The Artist Needs a Wife - the side project

Integrity in Criticism - Mary Shen Barnidge

Conception and Creation - Blair Thomas - Hard Headed Heart - Blair Thomas & Co.

Direction in an Unconventional Space - Mike Rice - The Censor - Ebb and Flow

Acting - Melissa Hawkins - I Killed My Mother - Theatre Y

Ensemble Acting - Abigail's Party - A Red Orchid Theatre

Special recognition for hosting Mike Daisey's How Theatre Failed America - Victory Gardens Theater

Special recognition for spearheading Theater Wit's unique backstage design - Jeremy Wechsler

Special recognition for Living Philanthropic - Carlo Lorenzo Garcia

Direction - Seth Bockley - 1,001 - Collaboraction