And the 2025 Gregory Award Winners Are…
Cast and crew of House of Joy, winners of multiple Gregory Awards
October 27, 2025, marked the 25th annual Gregory Awards held by Theatre Puget Sound. Performers, designers, and theatre makers and lovers all filed into Town Hall Seattle decked in their finest fashion for a night to celebrate the artistry and creation of the performing arts. After an hour to mingle, socialize, and give toast to the year’s winner of the Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award (John Bradshaw), guests gathered in the pews of the Great Hall for the start of the ceremony.
With Jimmy Shields as host and performances from nominees interspersed between the reading of the awards, the night proved a lively venture. But as all shows, more was happening behind the scenes than met the eye.
Upon the announcement of each victor and the bestowing of that sleek, glass award, artists slipped backstage to give TPS and their communities and supporters extensive words of thanks. Each of these speeches can be found on TPS’ Instagram and are well worth listening to.
Afterwards, I pulled various winners aside to ask a few further questions. I wanted to know a little bit more about their productions and what the performing arts meant to them. In talking to each of them, I found many of them shared the same thoughts and sentiments about their art and the people they made it with, highlighting the very aspects of the Puget Sound theatrical community which drew me to the region just over a year ago.
First and foremost upon every artist’s lips was a great appreciation for the community.
Jacob Viramontes, who won Outstanding Lighting Design with Seattle Public Theatre and Pratidhwani’s House of Joy, said, “Theater is about hope and community, about bringing people together and trying to make the world a better place for all of us.”
Along similar lines, Mike Lion, Co-Artistic Director of Dacha Theatre, stated after the company won various People’s Choice awards, “Theater is an opportunity for us to have an emotional experience together. Dacha is an organization that creates theatre where the audience really matters. The fact that the audience is there together has an impact on the story, be it for one of our immersive shows or any of our productions. We really think about the audience and the fact that we’ve gathered here together to witness some art and some community.”
Host Jimmy Shields on stage
But community comes in many forms. While theater provides a hub for people to gather and experience art and play, it also provides an opportunity for self expression and diverse representation within our locality.
“I grew up coming to Seattle theater as a child,” said Michelle Matlock, creator and performer of The Mammy Project, which won multiple awards throughout the night. “Intiman Theatre was one of those theaters that my mom took me to. It’s where I saw my first all-Black production written by a Black playwright. To have my show be produced there was a full circle moment and a great honor.”
“Theater,” said Jasmine Joshua, writer and director of Here & Their, which won Outstanding Production—Musical, “is an opportunity for people to express their identity onstage in a safe way. Everything that I do has that mission. This show was no different. Theater is really important to preserve, because it’s a place where you can be who you are and become who you want to be.”
This sense of community and raw, expressive humanity isn’t limited to the present, either. Theater and the performing arts allow for the exploration of historical narratives in which we can find the things that led us to become who we are and the parts of ourselves which have already existed throughout all time. It creates a space to connect with the past and bring it into the present in a unique and physical way.
Moumita Battacharya, co-director of House of Joy (winner of a multitude of awards), stated, “I think it’s very important to tell stories that are unique. They may be from a different era, a different place, or a different people, but they have themes that are very relevant to what’s happening today in our world.”
Sometimes to express these themes a show necessitates more abstract mediums of performance. House of Joy featured large amounts of dance in place of certain character elements and combat scenes to tell the conceptual narrative. “My mission,” said Moumita, “is to put dance where it was not imagined before.” Co-director Agastya Kohli followed up by stating, “The House of Joy, the house in the script itself, is basically an unnamed character. And how do you tell what the character wants and does without personifying it? If you’re going to personify something as abstract as a house, it has to be dance. There are things that theatre—scripted theatre—can do to tell the story, but dance has a different quality to it, and you can tell the story just as well or better.”
None of these productions would be as intimate, immersive, or as moving without the artistic aid and collaboration of the tech designers who, with their talents, enhance a performance space and bring audiences fully into the world and narrative of the show. Nick O’leary, who won Outstanding Projection Design for House of Joy, said, “I’m really committed as an artist to the idea of liveness and what live performance can do that can’t be done in other mediums. I think projection design is this discipline of our work that can bring together visual, light, movement, and storytelling and is a really amazing tool for shaping time and space. I’m always grateful to work collaboratively with other artists to bring this aspect of theater to life.”
It takes a certain resilience and a community of like-minded artists to bring a production from idea to fruition. The Gregory Awards were a testament to that solidarity and resilience which we hold so passionately to in the Puget Sound region. As Gregory A. Falls was wont to say, “Theaters are like grapes; they grow best in bunches.”
“Theater requires a certain amount of faith,” said Harmony Arnold, winner of Outstanding Costume Design for Village Theatre’s Legally Blonde. Amy Poisson, Producing Artistic Director for Seattle Public Theater wove that faith with an artist’s stubborn perseverance and proclaimed to the public, “Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams. Find a play, champion it, find someone crazy enough that has a building to produce it with you, and then look what happens.”
Gregorys Executive Director Dr. Crystal L. Yingling
