PHOTO: “Last Call at the Riptide” received four honors for Pagosa’s Thingamajig Theatre Company in the prestigious 2023 statewide BroadwayWorld competition including best performer in a play for Ivy King, right, and top-five best supporting performer in a play for Karisa Bruin, left. Both these talented actors will play leading roles in Thingamajig’s next production, “Tiny Beautiful Things,” opening February 16. Photo courtesy Thingamajig Theatre Company.
Thingamajig Theatre Company excelled in the 2023 statewide competition sponsored by BroadwayWorld Denver with four first-place wins as well as 11 top-five finishes, according to results announced in Denver January 10.
BroadwayWorld oversees the largest live theatre audience-favorite awards on the globe, covering Broadway in New York, the West End in London and many other key artistic locations in the U.S. and worldwide.
Thingamajig Theatre is located in the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts. Its actors, directors and designers consistently have been winners in this prestigious statewide competition for many years.
Four Thingamajig winners
Here are the four Thingamajig artists who won first place in their category for 2023:
Best performer in a play: Ivy King, “Last Call at the Riptide”
Best costume design for a play or musical: Alexandra Saeger, “Jersey Boys”
Best scenic design for a play or musical: JD Madsen, “Great American Trailer Park Musical”
Best sound design for a play or musical: Tim Moore, “Great American Trailer Park Musical.”
Eleven Thingamajig top-five finishes
Here are the 11 actors, directors and designers who placed in the top-five in their category in 2023:
Best direction of a musical: Dennis Elkins, “Jersey Boys”
Best direction of a play: Melissa Firlit, “Last Call at the Riptide”
Best performer in a musical: Trevor Brown, “Jersey Boys”
Best supporting performer in a play: Karisa Bruin, “Last Call at the Riptide”
Best music direction: Boni McIntyre, “The Great American Trailer Park”
Best ensemble: “Jersey Boys”
Best choreography of a play or musical: Dani Loewen, “Jersey Boys”
Best lighting design of a play or musical: Mackenzie Lowe, “Godspell”
Best new play or musical: “Last Call at the Riptide,” written by local artist and playwright Karl Isberg
Best theatre for young audiences production: “Newsies Jr.”
Favorite local theatre: Thingamajig Theatre.
Reaction from Thingamajig
“These BroadwayWorld awards give us an opportunity to celebrate the impressive talents of the actors, directors and designers who helped us put on so many amazing live-theatre shows in 2023,” said Tim Moore, artistic director and cofounder of Thingamajig with his wife, Laura. “It was a joy for our audiences to experience the outstanding skills of some of our most popular favorites from previous years as well as to be introduced to talented new performers who came to Pagosa for the first time. Seeing Thingamajig’s name repeated so often at the top of the ballot makes us very proud.”
Thingamajig Theatre Company was cofounded in 2011 by Tim and Laura Moore. It is an award-winning professional nonprofit 501(c)(3) theatre in residence within the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts. Its talented actors, directors and designers come from across the U.S. and around the world to produce musicals, comedies and dramas year-round.
High-caliber competition
BroadwayWorld’s global theatre audience awards cover Broadway in New York as well as many other key artistic locations in the U.S. and worldwide including in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and South Africa. Thingamajig competes in the impressive Denver regional professional theatre market, with this year’s nominees also coming from Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre, Vintage Theatre, Merely Players, Front Range Theatre Company, Arvada Center, Boulder Dinner Theatre, Cherry Creek Theatre and many more. This means that the caliber of the statewide competition is extremely high, and Thingamajig’s many wins over the years make our community very proud of our professional theatre.