Congratulations to the alumni and faculty of the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department and the Columbia College Chicago Music Department who have been nominated for 2024 Joseph Jefferson Awards, Chicago’s top theatre award. The Equity “Jeff Awards” honor excellence in Chicago’s Equity theatre during the 2023-2024 theatre season. The list of this year’s Equity Jeff Award nominees, announced August 6 by the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, includes alumni, former students, and current and former faculty from Columbia College Chicago’s Theatre and Music programs in the areas of performance, design, direction, choreography, and musical composition. The individual nominees include these Columbia College alums:

Leah Morrow ’05, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Musical Theatre, nominated in the category of Performer in a Revue for Beehive: The 60’s Musical at Marriott Theatre;

Grant Sabin ’05, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s Theatre Design Program and also a faculty member in the Theatre program, for Scenic Design (Midsize) for Turret at A Red Orchid Theatre;

Conchita Avitia ’18, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Theatre Design, for Lighting Design (Midsize) for About Face Theatre’s The Brightest Thing in the World;

Paul Deziel ’14, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s Technical Theatre program, for Projection Design for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Paramount Theatre; and

Jeffrey Levin ’10, a graduate of the Music Department‘s BA Program in Music with a Composition Concentration, thrice-nominated for his sound design for three productions (Writers Theatre’s Eurydice, Northlight Theatre’s Selling Kabul, and A Red Orchid Theatre’s Turret) and also nominated for Original Music in a Play for
Turret.

 

Also nominated were Columbia College Theatre Department faculty member Daryl D. Brooks for Director – Revue for The Time Machine: A Tribute to the 80s at Black Ensemble Theatre; former Columbia College Theatre Department student Bethany Thomas, for Performer in a Principal Role – Play for Marie and Rosetta at Northlight Theatre; former Theatre Department faculty member Vanessa Stalling, for Director – Play (Large) for the Broadway in Chicago/TimeLine Theatre Company coproduction The Lehman Trilogy; former faculty member Chuck Smith, for Director – Play (Midsize) for The Reclamation of Madison Hemings at American Blues Theatre; former faculty member Jim Corti, for Director – Musical (Large) for Next to Normal at Paramount Theatre; former faculty member Tammy Mader, for Choreography
for Anything Goes at Porchlight Music Theatre; and former faculty member Mike Tutaj, nominated twice for Projection Design, for Drury Lane Productions’ Fiddler on the Roof and Frame of Reference Productions’ Gods and Monsters.

Columbia College alumni were in the casts of several productions nominated in the category of Ensemble, including Marriott Theatre’s The Music Man, A Taste of Soul at Black Ensemble Theatre, and The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at the Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years at Goodman Theatre. And Columbia College alumni, former students, and current and former faculty members were in the casts and creative teams of several plays, musicals, and revues nominated in the category of Production, including Goodman Theatre’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Porchlight Music Theatre’s Anything Goes, Marriott Theatre’s The Music Man, Young Frankenstein at Mercury Theatre Chicago, A Taste of Soul at Black Ensemble Theatre, Turret at A Red Orchid Theatre, and The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at the Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years at Goodman Theatre.

The 2023-2024 Equity Jeff Awards honor excellence in theatrical production at Chicago-area theatre between July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. The 56th anniversary Equity Jeff Awards presentation will take place September 30, 2024, at Drury Lane Theatre in the Chicago suburb of  Oakbrook Terrace. For tickets, click here.