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.