San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle To Announce 45th Theatre Awards Recipients This Saturday

The San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle will announce the recipients of their 45th Excellence in Theatre Awards on Saturday, April 30. The awards will be announced via video presentations that are scheduled to go live on the SFBATCC website at 1:00 pm.

The pandemic-necessitated shuttering of theaters in 2020 and their reopening in mid-2021 led to an adjustment to the Circle's normal qualifying period. "A lot of great theatre was being done in the Bay Area right before the pandemic and Bay Area theatre came back strong in 2021," said SFBATCC President Barry Willis. "It is our privilege to give those companies and artists their due."

As a result, productions that opened in the first quarter of 2020 and the last half of 2021 were eligible for Award consideration. Nominations were announced on March 30.

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.

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.