Off-Broadway's Our Town Honored by 2009 Jeff Awards

Off-Broadway’s acclaimed revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, originally mounted in April 2009 by Chicago’s The Hypocrites Theatre, was among the list of Non-Equity Jeff Awards winners on June 8. The show, currently running at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre, features director David Cromer, who also won a Jeff in the directing category.

Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Our Town’s Broadway premiere, the new production was part of a complete redesign of the Barrow Street Theatre’s space. The resulting production utilizes the theater so that residents of the fictional town of Grover’s Corners present their story in, among and around the audience. As previously reported, the show may be eyeing a transfer to Broadway, where it would potentially play Circle in the Square, current home of the Tony Award-winning The Normal Conquests revival.

Established in 1968, Chicago’s Jeff Awards work every year to honor outstanding theater artists. The Non-Equity Wing of the organization was chartered in 1973 to highlight those productions that could potentially be overshadowed by larger, unionized mountings. The roughly 50 Jeff members evaluate over 250 theatrical productions and hold two awards ceremonies annually, one for non-union productions and the other for Equity shows.

The next Equity Awards ceremony will take place at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, Illinois, on October 19, 2009.