Broadway World Regional Awards Concern

[whatacharacter]

Posted: 1/14/26 at 8:21am

I don't know if concern is too strong a word...  I support and respect the decision to remove gender identifiers from performance categories to be all-inclusive, however, in doing so only half of the amount of artists are being recognized.  As two categories were combined into one, why not award the top two winners?  I know it may be two of the same gender in a category, but at least the number of recipients would be the same.

Updated On: 1/14/26 at 08:21 AM

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 1/14/26 at 8:33am

I don’t know where you’re from, but the Jeff Awards in Chicago reward the top two winners. Even then, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee all the awards will be distributed equally amongst gender… nor should it.

[SeanD2]

Posted: 1/14/26 at 11:06am

whatacharacter said: "I don't know if concern is too strong a word...  I support and respect the decision to remove gender identifiers from performance catagories to be all-inclusive, however, in doing so only half of the amount of artists are being recognized.  As two catagories were combined into one, why not award the top two winners?  In my region all performance awards went to cis-female performers."

Do you have the same concerns with the fact that other categories don't break things out by gender or award two winners? No. Then why should actors be treated any differently?

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 1/14/26 at 11:29am

I'm part of a voting group for theatre awards for productions from the Twin Cities. Our nominees for performer in a musical this year ended up with three women and two nonbinary. Sometimes it just shakes out that way. Overall we were less concerned specifcally about gender representation than making sure a wide variety of different companies and performing groups were represented.

Updated On: 1/14/26 at 11:29 AM

[pmensky]

Posted: 1/14/26 at 3:57pm

The BroadwayWorld Awards aren’t juried or vetted. Anyone can nominate themselves, and anyone can vote whether they’ve seen the show or not. It’s a turnout contest, not an award. At this point it mostly exists to give community theatre performers something to point to, which is fine, but it has nothing to do with actual evaluation or recognition.