32nd ANNUAL TICKETHOLDER AWARDS 2023  

In a year where live performance is struggling as never before, this has been a phenomenally innovative and incredibly memorable time for the unstoppable theatre artists of LA. If you’re still staying home and not yet out supporting our prolific community, lordie, lordie, are you ever missing out.

It wasn’t difficult to choose a Best Season standout for 2023. My alma mater Pasadena Playhouse, where I studied back when the dinosaurs roamed El Molino Avenue during the time when it was still a college of the theatre arts, has received my top three Revival Awards for 2023 among many other awards and nominations. The Playhouse offered not only a worldclass season of Sondheim presented in a most loving and reverent way, the Sir Steve festival was followed by Zora Howard’s Pulitzer finalist Stew, director Cameron Watson’s masterful mounting of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside, and Michael Michetti’s inventive reinvention of Lawrence and Lee’s classic Inherit the Wind—a production especially dear to my heart as a member of the original Broadway production when I was just a barefoot lad. Oh—and did I mention the Playhouse was honored with the Regional Theatre Tony Award for 2023? None too shabby.

For me, there were a lot of much-talked about presentations I didn’t get to see, particularly in the spring when I traveled to South America for the first time (Buenos Aries, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; and Montevideo, Uruguay) to teach three incredible acting intensives to some amazingly receptive students, repeating the same inspirational opportunity to pass on—before I pass on—whatever knowledge I’ve gleaned over the past seven decades to another stand of eager and immensely talented students in Madrid and Barcelona last October.

Still, my 32nd annual TicketHolder Awards are chockfull of winners this year and, from what I see coming my way, 2024 will be equally dynamic in our too-often parched reclaimed desert climes, so come on back. We need you!

BEST PLAYS OF 2023

Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Rogue Machine Theatre

Scintilla, Road Theatre Company 

Life Sucks., Interact Theatre Company 

Measure STILL for Measure, Boston Court Performing Arts Center 

The Sound Inside, Pasadena Playhouse 

The Travelers, Latino Theater Company 

Kiss of the Spider Woman, A Noise Within 

Home Front, Victory Theatre Center 

Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre 

Do You Feel Anger?, Circle X Theatre Company 

Crabs in a Bucket, Echo Theater Company

RUNNERS-UP: Back Porch, Victory Theatre Center; Nimrod, Theatre of NOTE; Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, CTG/Kirk Douglas Theatre

BEST REVIVAL PRODUCTIONS

Sunday in the Park with George, Pasadena Playhouse

 A Little Night Music, Pasadena Playhouse 

Inherit the Wind, Pasadena Playhouse 

 Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum

Into the Woods, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre  

  Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, Fountain Theatre

 The Lion King, Pantages Theatre

 The Secret Garden, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre

 1776, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre

 Hairspray, Dolby Theatre

 Les Misérables, Pantages Theatre and Segerstrom Center for the Arts

BEST MUSICAL PRODUCTIONS

El último sueño de Frida y Diego, LA Opera

 MJ—The Musical, Pantages Theatre

A Christmas Story, the Musical, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre 

The Lonely Few, Geffen Playhouse 

Dark of the Moon, Rubicon Theatre Company 

Beetlejuice the Musical, Pantages Theatre 

The Barber of Seville, LA Opera 

TINA – The Tina Turner Musical, Pantages Theatre 

Mean Girls, Pantages Theatre 

Six, Pantages Theatre / Segerstrom Center for the Arts 

A Transparent Musical, Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum 

SPECIAL TICKETHOLDER AWARDS 2023

Beth Kennedy, Goddess of the Standing Ovation after 20 holiday seasons as the Winter Warlock, Troubadour Theater Company

The Producers, Teatre Tivoli, Barcelona, Spain

THE WHAT-WERE-THEY-THINKING AWARD 2023

The Ants, Geffen Playhouse