The HRACT Awards
The Hampton Roads Achievement in Community Theater Awards
Recent posts
-
Eight Characters Head into the Forest of Arden. Will They All Find Marriage? Find Out at “As You Like It” Playing Now at Little Theatre of Norfolk
Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/) Is there a limit to the number of couples that I can shoe-horn into a play with a single wedding at the end? And can I make the play still appealing to those who hate love by adding a character whose whole deal is to be a foil…
-
The Winter Wonderettes Headline Harper’s Hardware Holiday Happenings at Smithfield Little Theatre
*Note: As per the performance eligibility requirements laid out here, this production is not up for HRACT Award consideration.* Smithfield Little Theatre loves a four woman show, and this year, they filled their two weekend-only holiday spot with “Winter Wonderettes”, a show sprinkled with classic Christmas songs tied together with a loose plotline wherein the audience…
-
PCT Tells a Scary Ghost Story (Along with some Tales of Glory) this Christmas Season with “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol”
This time of year, the world is flooded with versions of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” – and oftentimes, lost in the musical numbers and the production value, it is easy to forget that, at its core, this is a ghost story. Peninsula Community Theatre’s “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol”, told from the perspective of that…
-
Just in Time for Thanksgiving, “Nolan’s Wake” Will Make You Thankful for the Family You Have
*Note: As per the performance eligibility requirements laid out here, this production is not up for HRACT Award consideration.* “Nolan’s Wake”, playing as part of the Curtain Up! New Play Series at Zeiders American Dream Theater, begins with a familiar scenario – a family showing up at a house they’ve rented, with immediate drama over who…
-
Little Theatre of Virginia Beach Taps the Night Away with “Crazy For You”
A quirk in the scheduling of HRACT-Award eligible shows this year meant that it had been over two months since we’d seen a musical – “much too long” I said to my wife as we walked toward the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach to see “Crazy For You”. I do love a play, but there…
-
Williamsburg Players’ Remarkable Acting and Strong Storytelling Will Keep You Guessing Throughout “Rehearsal for Murder”
Theatre, at its core, is a game of imagination. You have a group of people – large or small – on stage, pretending to do something, and hoping that the audience is interested enough in the game to stay for a couple of hours. Sometimes, you add fancy sets lit by the most complicated of…
-
The 2024-25 ACT-y Winners
Year number two of the HRACT Awards is in the books! Thank you to everyone for coming out to support the amazing community that these theaters create (and of course, some remarkable performances and impressive technical work). We’ve got to run the credits one more time for all the incredible people who made the evening…
-
Information and Reminders for those Attending the Awards Ceremony
The 2024-2025 Hampton Roads Achievement in Community Theater Awards is almost here! If you are planning to attend, here are some reminders and information: If you are a NAMED NOMINEE (i.e., your name individually appears on our nomination announcement here): Finally, if you are part of a nomination for Best Performance of a Song (Ensemble),…
-
LTN Explores Addiction and Recovery in “Water by the Spoonful”
There are two main storylines in “Water by the Spoonful”, playing now at the Little Theatre of Norfolk, and they are cleverly separated by a screen which comes down and blurs the plotline taking place mainly in an online chatroom as the plotline taking place “IRL” plays out. The “IRL” (in real life) action centers…
-
A Real Estate Deal, a Sexy Dracula, and a Woman Doctor (we just call that a Doctor): PCT’s “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors” has a Little Bit(e) of Everything
My high school assigned us Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” for summer reading prior to my senior year, but somehow never got around to the obvious autumn follow-up of Brahm Stoker’s “Dracula.” So I cannot tell you how strictly “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors”, playing now at Peninsula Community Theatre, sticks to the canonical text, but I’m…
HRACT Awards 