CHICAGO: The 2019 Jeff Awards took place this week, celebrating the best of the year in Chicago Equity theatre.
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company‘s production of Frankenstein, adapted by Nick Dear from Mary Shelley, won five awards, including Best Play in the midsize theatre category. Court Theatre also won five awards, including four for their production of Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler and the Ensemble Award for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. In the large theatre category, Steppenwolf Theatre Company won Best Play for their production of Downstate by Bruce Norris, while Best Musical went to Chicago Shakespeare Theater‘s Six by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, a show coming to Broadway in February 2020.
Three new works received Jeff Awards this year, including Steppenwolf’s Downstate; the musical We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time by David Cale and Matthew Dean Marsh at the Goodman Theatre, in co-production with the Public Theater; and Miracle by Michael Mahler and Jason Brett.
Teatro Vista, a Latinx theatre company, was also honored with a Special Equity Jeff Award.
A full list of Equity Jeff Awards nominees and winners can be found here.
The Jeff Awards have been honoring theatre artists annually since 1968 and are committed to celebrating the vitality of Chicago theatre. The Jeff Awards established a non-Equity wing in 1973 to celebrate achievements in non-union theatre.
