Richard Knowles and Kip Chapman in The Little Dog Laughed at DownstageAs Hadyn rightly points out, it is "Award Season" and the Wellington theatre community is no exception. The list of nominations for the annual Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards was announced yesterday and they demonstrate once again that live theatre in Wellington is in very good shape.

The judges (critics and reviewers from The Dominion Post, Capital Times, Theatreview, Salient and The Lumiere Reader) all watched more than 90 productions during 2008 and the nominations are spread across 29 of those.

Leading the pack, each with four nominations, is Apollo 13 (BATS), The American Pilot (Circa) and The Little Dog Laughed (Downstage) and the man of the hour would appear to be Kip Chapman who co-directed Apollo 13 and starred in the other two, and is nominated for a performance award for his work in Little Dog.

Of all the big nominees, only The Little Dog Laughed is still playing and the lovely people at Downstage are offering the two sharpest Wellingtonista readers a double pass to tonight’s performance where you can see Kip strut his stuff with Sophie Hambleton (also nominated), Richard Knowles and Renee Sheridan.

Send an email to cherie@downstage.co.nz and the first two entries get to go to tonight’s show.

The winners are announced on Sunday 7th December, at a glittering occasion at the Wellington Town Hall.