The Wilde Awards
The Wilde Awards – named in honor of 19th century playwright Oscar Wilde – honors the best productions, performances and technical work produced or presented by professional theaters across the state. Nominations are based on reviews written by EncoreMichigan.com’s team of professional critics.
The number of awards varies slightly from year to year. But each year the program honors categories including: Best Drama, Best Musical, Best Comedy, Best Opera, Best of the Bard, Best Theater for Young Audiences, and more.
The Wilde Awards, founded in 2002, is an important measure of recognition for Michigan’s professional theater community. Because of cutbacks in the newspaper business and mainstream media in general, EncoreMichigan is the only media outlet that covers professional theater throughout the state of Michigan.
The criteria for a production being considered for Wilde Awards is as follows:
- • Only shows produced or presented by Michigan’s professional theaters and opera companies – both Equity and non-Equity, large and small – and reviewed by EncoreMichigan.com’s critics are eligible for a Wilde Awards nomination.
- • Only professional productions that meet the following criteria are eligible to be reviewed by EncoreMichigan.com: Productions that run (A) four consecutive days or more, or (B) two weekends or more.
- • Both locally produced shows and national touring productions are eligible for nominations.
- • For purposes of The Wilde Awards, the theater season runs June through May.
How do the awards get selected?
- • At the conclusion of the theater season, EncoreMichigan.com’s theater critics meet and compare scorecards that are kept on every production. Productions with the highest ratings are pooled, ranked and discussed, with the top-ranked productions, performances and designs earning a nomination. Winners are determined by score (for productions) and earnest debate (for all other awards).