Theater critic Pat Launer will host the 11th annual Patté Awards for Theater Excellence Monday, Jan. 14 at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center’s David and Dorothea Garfield Theatre, featuring music, food and tributes to theater artists who have made “memorable contributions to the theater community in 2007.”
“Pat Launer attends 200 plays a year,” said Melissa Pfeiffer, public relations and marketing coordinator. “This honors the theater artists of San Diego.”
Launer, a San Diego theater critic who describes herself as someone who takes theater seriously, happened upon the awards by accident.
“I was sitting at home and thinking of the joy I get from theater every year,” Launer said. “It’s gone in an instant and I wanted to give something back.”
So Launer did. In 1997, she began honoring those in theater she deemed worthy.
“I made up certificates on my home computer and I mailed them out,” Launer said. “Then I started seeing them everywhere.”
Launer would see printouts from her home computer on walls or backstage, she said.
“I said, ‘wow,'” Launer said. “And then I started throwing a party for the winners, and it started getting bigger and bigger.”
The awards have turned into a televised gala, with performances and music.
“The new venue is larger and more expansive. I always wanted table seating more than theater seating so we can [retain] the intimacy,” Launer said. “The JCC has all the bells and whistles for our awards. Our band is bigger than before, and there is a lot of musical humor.”
In addition to awards, an inaugural scholarship will be given in honor of the late Dr. Floyd Gaffney, the director and University of California, San Diego educator. The scholarship will be given to “a promising young theater maker.”
Gaffney is the founder of African-American theater in San Diego, Launer said.
“The scholarship was made for the California Young Actors Conservatory and they are also performing a show,” Launer said. “We made the scholarship available for performers aged 15 to 20 in any aspect of theater.”
Although Launer won’t reveal the winner of the scholarship until the night of the award show, she did give away some clues.
“They all wrote very passionate essays about the importance of theater,” Launer said. “I can’t reveal the name of the winner yet, but definitely, he’s a very promising young actor.”
The young scholarship winner is also local.
“He happens to live in La Jolla,” she said.
Other awards will include the Shiley Lifetime Achievement Award and the John Guth Award for behind-the-scenes brilliance.
“There are still gallery seats available, but the dinner seats are sold out,” Pfeiffer said.
The gala will begin at 6 p.m. on the Jacobs Family Campus of the Lawrence Family JCC, 4126 Executive Drive, and is scheduled to last through 10 p.m. The television broadcast will be Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. on Channel 4.
For more information, go to www.patteproductions.com.