From the opening number of the Iveys Award ceremonies last year at the State Theatre.
The wacky, the charming, the talented Miss Shanan Custer will be host of this year's Iveys celebration on Sept. 24. Custer, a longtime mainstay at the Brave New Workshop who has branched into writing and directing, is something of a natural stand-up comedian. Not that it has anything to do with the Iveys and borders on idle gossip but she recently married the comic actor Eric Webster – unless they faked those photos on Facebook.
This is the 8th Iveys event, which recognizes excellence in the Twin Cities professional theater community. The standing awards are for Lifetime Achievement and Emerging Artist. Last year's winners respectively were Bain Boehlke and Anna Sundberg. Other honors during the ceremony will go to outstanding performers, productions, costumers, set designers – whatever the 150 Iveys evaluators really liked throughout the year. There are no nominees and the winners are not referred to as winners. It's quirky but it works and executive director Scott Mayer deserves an Ivey himself for keeping the event vital in its 8th year – which I believe is the longest continuous theater award program in Twin Cities history.
The Sept. 24 program begins at 7:30 p.m. at the State Theatre. There are parties before and after, which makes the evening the most wonderful time of the year for catching up with everyone in the theater community. More information here.
