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Re-establishing the Gary Maker Audience Award
Re-establishing the Gary Maker Award
Former editor-in-chief and dear friend Lorraine Treanor retired from running DCTheatre Scene during COVID and closed-up shop after many years of service to our theatre community. She mentored many writers. Her standards for critical writing were uncompromising but her joy of live theatre was ever infectious.
Lorraine created many initiatives to lift up the local theater community, but none so imaginative and bold than her launching the Gary Maker Audience Award, an annual event, asking production houses to partner in the endeavor and nominate an exceptional audience member, and then one from the region was selected through a careful process.
And this is what she wrote:
“Most art is finished before it ever reaches an audience. A painting, a sculpture, a film is what it is. We, as viewers, add nothing.
But live theatre exists to be experienced. Writers spin their ideas into words and their words into scripts. Designers, directors and performers collaborate for weeks, months, sometimes years to bring their unique interpretations to those words. Yet not until an audience arrives does theatre come to life.”
To honor Lorraine, her vision and exceptional leadership, Alliance for New Music-Theatre will re-establish the Gary Maker Audience Award. Long live great audience members!
Join Washington Theater Lovers to Celebrate the 2025 winners of the Gary Maker Audience Award, hosted by
GALA HISPANIC THEATRE on Saturday May 3, 2025
Longtime Washington theater patrons José Alberto Uclés and husband Tom Noll will receive the Gary Maker Audience Award at a special ceremony Saturday, May 3, 2025 for their enthusiastic support of and ubiquitous, vital, and colorful presence at Washington area theaters.
The Gary Maker Audience Award is the only recognition given by any theater community in the nation to an audience member. Established by DC
Theatre Scene, in 2011 to be bestowed not for large financial contributions but in recognition of outstanding audience members “who are passionate, involved, informed, and grounded in their love for theater and who lend their time and personal support to encourage other audience members and who see that theater in the Washington area not only survives, but thrives,” DC Theatre Scene publisher Lorraine Treanor remarked.
Uclés and Noll will receive the award having been nominated this year by both GALA Hispanic Theatre and Theater Alliance. The nominees “bring incredible social cheerleading to the whole theater community…their energy and positivity encourage others to engage with our work,” Theater Alliance noted in its nomination. GALA pointed out that they “advocate for all theaters.”
It should also be noted that in addition to their enthusiastic support, Uclés and Noll are well known for their extraordinary haberdashery, often on display in theater and non-theater settings alike.
On May 3, the award ceremony will commence at 7:30 p.m., preceding a performance of Choke by Emilio Infante which begins at 8 p.m. Following the performance, GALA will host a reception in the lobby. All in attendance that evening are invited to join the celebration.
revious Gary Maker Audience Award recipients are David Tannous, Alison Drucker and Tom Holzman, Barbara Bear, David Kessler, and Joel Markowitz. Louis Altarescu and the late Alan Friedman were the last to receive the award from DC Theatre Scene before it closed in December of 2020.
Alliance for New Music-Theatre gathered a team representing the DC theater community, including DC Theater Arts, to re-establish the award in 2024. Greg Williams, an avid theater goer with multiple subscriptions and who follows the development of productions from start to full production and especially champions new works was the first recipient of the revived award.
Ticket information:
Gary Maker Award Ceremony at 7:30 p.m. and Choke at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Reception to follow
GALA Hispanic Theatre
3333 14th Street NW
Washington, DC 20010
Tickets: $50; $35 seniors and military
Purchase
Box office: 202-234-7174
Contact for more information and photos: susan@newmusictheatre.org
(cell) 202-341-0254, (office) 202-256-7614
About the Gary Maker Award: The life of Gary Maker, the artist who created the glass award, and interviews with each past award recipient.