So I was on the theatre panel this year. I was going to post tomorrow, but I’ve just checked my NDA and realised I was actually clear to talk about some things once the nominations had come out.
My better half and I are off to the awards tomorrow, red carpet arrivals and onwards to the fancy afterparty as guests!
Sorry for the long post, I’ve tried to pick out questions that have been asked about the panel in this thread and cover many of them while talking about my own experience.
I am not in the theatre business, I don’t have connections, I do not know cast or creatives. I work in a very different industry and since moving back to London in 2018, I’ve rediscovered a love of theatre (I had previously gone a fair bit between 2004 and 2007) and my better half and I now go to a lot of shows.
I applied online for the panel for the last couple of years. I sent in a short review of a production recently seen and a listing of shows seen in the previous year. The number of shows is a particular indicator because the panel is quite a time commitment. The panel were regular theatre-goers (there are at least three others lurking if not posting here). Let me stress, you don't need to have been going to a hundred West End shows, I see a ton of Fringe shows - it is knowledge, enthusiasm and time commitment that are valued. I later found out that my 207 shows listed for the previous year pretty meant the interview was loaded in my favour. Note, I was not the panellist who had seen the most shows(!). There are 9 members on the theatre panel.
I saw 119 shows for the panel - this was a record year. This was across 46 different stages on 107 days. There were 116 eligible shows with a couple of repeat visits if an understudy had been on and then a show that wasn't eligible. I saw *everything* eligible, I did not miss a show. I got a plus one to 109 of 119 shows, The face value of the tickets was £20,049.10. Note that does not include any booking fees that would have been added on top. That works out to an average of £87.93 per ticket. The highest price was £300 for Plaza Suite at Savoy and the lowest was £15 for The Good Person of Szechwan at Lyric Hammersmith. There was a copy of a programme included every time there was one available (108) including some of the fancy souvenir ones. There were drinks tokens included for maybe a quarter of the shows. Please don’t take this as a complaint but I do think it a useful piece of information. I do like my tracking and my spreadsheets, so I can tell you that I spent £926 on travel just for the panel shows.
I got four particularly snazzy invites (Shirley Valentine gala night, Dorian Gray with fancy afterparty, Nachtland after party, and due a series of mix-ups, the Coliseum gave me a box for We Will Rock You - I don't think I'd been lower than the balcony before!).
There were two panel meetings clocking in at over 10 hours of in-person discussion, with wine, beer and a cold buffet dinner. The discussion was not directed, nor were the panel pointed to any names at any stage. There was one question about halfway through as SOLT thought it was noticeable one show had not been mentioned but in this particular case we simply had not got to the categories where there was consensus and it went on to feature on our list and somewhat in the nominations. I’m quite happy that this discussion was entirely led by the panel.
So the panel creates a longlist in almost every category. The panel's selections are then marked for the first round voters' attention. These are SOLT members (and the panel gets to vote here too). This creates the nominations and then the wider SOLT membership (and the panel again) vote for the eventual winners.
The main exceptions are the supporting categories. There are literally thousands of possible nominees, so the panel has significantly more power here. It selects a long-list and that list is the only list that SOLT can vote on. The panel can nominate anyone for supporting unless the producers have put them forward in a leading position.
I - mostly - got to pick when I wanted to see a show. I would get a window in which I could request my dates, these would be usually accepted subject to cast holidays etc. It did lead to some quiet times and then some really busy times, but by Feb due to the number of shows looking to get in before the deadline, it was BUSY. I did not have a choice of a number of dates but this had been flagged in advance. Between 15 Feb and 28 Feb, I think I saw 12 shows. There were some short notice shows, either shows that decided they wanted to be eligible or that added some extra dates on short notice to reach the threshold.
It has become a bit of a moot point since Bridge Theatre has become an affiliate**, but there was a bit of early discussion about how the awards might mean less if Guys & Dolls wasn’t eligible - there were a few changes to the venues this year. I had a ticket withdrawn when a venue became ineligible, and if you watch the SOLT Venues page listing, it does get updated.
solt.co.uk/solt-venues/ At the end of the day it is an award within a membership organisation, you gotta be in it to win it. The panel initially seeing it and then becoming eligible was the biggest thing I had to bite my tongue about on here but other posters shared this info both times.
It was an amazing experience. We saw literally everything, you name it, we saw it. No such thing as sold out, there was even an opportunity to sometimes buy an extra ticket so despite being sold out, I was able to buy two extra house seats and bring friends to Donmar’s Macbeth.
The seats given were 95% of the time the best seats in the theatre occasionally sat right with celebs or guests. Not me but the two best panel stories were sitting next to Ralph Fiennes while watching Dear England and Hugh Jackman at something reasonably recently. I did see Cate Blanchett three shows running including a brief hello at the Dorian Gray party because it took a second for my brain to realise she isn’t someone I knew, she’s just famous. I’m sure people say ‘hello’ by reflex all the time before realising their mistake.
There is some joy in always being able to see the full cast and knowing that you’ll get rescheduled or go again if you miss a lead actor. Coming from this to tickets I paid for to MJ and Nye and not getting the leads that I had bought on the basis of was a bumpy return back to normality!
It was really nice to share around with friends too. With so many plus ones, there were shows that my better half wasn’t interested in seeing or just fancied a night off so I was able to take going on a dozen different friends, some of whom are not regular theatre goers and most would not have ever had such good seats.
The advice beforehand was to go with an open mind and to expect a lot of Shakespeare. Three Macbeths and two Lears really rammed the latter home!
Downsides, I’ve not been allowed to talk much about shows I’ve seen. I’ve read lots of threads but not contributed to so many. I’ve posted a little more following the panel meeting but it has meant keeping pretty quiet for a year on here and on social media and mostly in general conversation. I enjoyed voting in polls and liking posts though!
I have no idea how anyone did this pre-covid in a ‘standard’ 9-5. The amount of nights out when I am 99% WFH and so can get an extra couple of hours sleep in the mornings without a commute was still tiring at times.
By the end of Feb it was a very tiring, I will grant that. The run of shows and having to fit them in for a specific order was very draining. Like other panellists, I took it quite seriously, it wasn't just a case of seeing something but making some notes afterwards and perhaps focusing on things that we don’t always focus on at a night at the theatre. It’s nice to now just be able to come here and post 2 lines that sum up my thoughts without trying to make sure I’ve considered the sound and the lighting and the choreography and the directing and etc in such a way that 12 months later I’d be able to cast a vote from memories helped by my notes.
By the end of it, I think the entire panel was feeling it. It sometimes felt like a fulltime job. You might think that 119 shows spread out over the year is easy, two a week right? Yeah that was what I thought too but actually there are fits and spurts and sometimes producers change dates and all of a sudden you don't have a quiet weekend at home like you had planned.
Having said that, I’ve seen 20 shows since finishing on the panel on 28 Feb, so you know, my enthusiasm remains! Deciding my own pace, picking my own shows and doing more fringe/pub again helps.
So yeah, there you go. After the awards I will post who I voted for in the final round. I’ll be happy to answer any particular questions on process/experience. For the time being, I don’t think it fair to talk about the panel voting so I will shy away from that at least for now. My thanks to a couple of the recent panellists who posted here and then chatted a bit in private messages, very interesting to compare some notes. If anyone is on the current panel and would like to chat anything in particular, feel free to message!
**Love any gossip on this if anyone wants to share!
