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Helen Hayes Awards Announces 2015 Nominees Under New Guidelines

Also see Susan's review of Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery


At an event January 26 in the Helen Hayes Gallery of the National Theatre in Washington, DC, theatreWashington announced the nominees for the 2015 Helen Hayes Awards, which recognize excellence in professional theatre throughout the Washington metropolitan area.

This year's awards are the first being presented under new rules and guidelines implemented for the 2014 theater season; as a result, the number of award categories has roughly doubled to 47.

Under the new rules, eligible productions now fall into one of two categories: "Helen" productions, with less than 51 percent of the cast covered by an Equity contract and no more than three Equity contracted actors in the cast, and "Hayes" productions, presented by a eligible theater operating under an Equity agreement, with 51 percent or more of the cast working under an Equity contract, or with four or more Equity contracted actors in the cast.

The most honored theaters are Signature Theatre, which received a total of 28 nominations for seven productions; Synetic Theater, 23 nominations for four productions; and Theater Alliance, 20 nominations for two productions.

Productions leading the nominations, with 11 each are The BFG (play, Hayes), Imagination Stage; Black Nativity (musical, Helen), Theater Alliance; Spamalot (musical, Helen), Toby's Dinner Theatre; and Twelfth Night (play, Helen), Synetic Theater. The Wonderful World of Dissocia (play, Helen), Theater Alliance, received nine nominations, followed by eight each for two productions at Olney Theatre Center, Colossal (play, Hayes) and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, Hayes).

This year's award ceremony will be held April 6.

The full list of nominations and the live webcast of the nomination announcement are available at www.theatrewashington.org.