Vote for THE DRESSER in the BroadwayWorld Buffalo 2026 Awards
A theatre production only lives for a short time on stage, but the work behind it lasts much longer in the memories of the people who were there.
This November, our production of THE DRESSER received exciting recognition in the BroadwayWorld Buffalo 2026 Awards. We are honored to share that the production has been nominated across several categories, including performance, direction, design, ensemble work, and local theatre support.
These nominations mean a great deal to everyone who helped bring the show to life. A play like THE DRESSER asks for care from every corner of the room. It needs precise performances, strong direction, thoughtful design, emotional timing, and a company willing to listen closely to one another. We are proud that this work has been recognized, and we are grateful to every audience member, artist, volunteer, supporter, and friend who has been part of the journey.
Now we need your help.
Please visit the BroadwayWorld Buffalo Awards voting page and vote for THE DRESSER in the nominated categories. If the production moved you, made you laugh, made you hold your breath, or reminded you why live theatre matters, this is a wonderful way to show your support.
Here is the link: https://www.broadwayworld.com/buffalo/awards/
Enter your email and follow the prompts to vote for THE DRESSER in each category. At the end, post the info to prove you are a real person, and you are done! THANK YOU!
A proud moment for THE DRESSER
THE DRESSER is a play about theatre, loyalty, survival, ego, tenderness, and the private rituals that happen behind the curtain. It is funny, aching, sharp, and deeply human. At its center is a relationship shaped by pressure, devotion, frustration, and love for the stage.
That is one reason this recognition feels so meaningful. The story itself honors theatre people, the performers, dressers, stage managers, designers, musicians, technicians, and crews who give everything to make a live performance possible. To see our own production acknowledged across so many parts of the craft feels especially fitting.
The BroadwayWorld Buffalo Awards give local audiences a chance to celebrate the productions and artists they loved. They also help bring attention to the theatre makers who work with care, skill, and persistence in regional communities. A vote is small on its own, but collectively, those votes help lift up the work.
For us, these nominations are also a reminder of the people behind the scenes. Every costume choice, lighting cue, sound moment, musical decision, and performance beat came from artists making hundreds of choices in service of the play.
That work deserves celebration.
Our BroadwayWorld Buffalo 2026 Award nominations
We are thrilled to be nominated in the following categories:
Category | Nominee |
Best Costume Designs | Pierre’s |
Best Direction of a Play | Kevin G. Shinnick |
Best Ensemble | THE DRESSER |
Best Lighting Design for a Play | Kenneth DeBot |
Best Musical Direction | Flynn Ayers |
Best Performer in a Play | James R. Franklin |
Best Play | THE DRESSER |
Best Sound Design | Flynn Ayers |
Best Supporting Performer | Lisa Frisone |
Best Supporting Performer | Shaun Milner |
Favorite Local Theatre | MuCCC |
Each nomination represents a different part of the production’s heartbeat.
Some categories honor individual artistry. Others recognize how the company functioned as a whole. Taken together, they point to what made the production special, the shared effort of many artists working toward one clear world.
Why each category matters
Awards are not the reason theatre is made. Theatre is made for audiences, for stories, and for the live exchange that happens in the room. Still, nominations can shine a light on the many forms of craft that shape a production.
Best Costume Designs
Costumes do much more than dress a character. They help define status, history, mood, weariness, vanity, class, and transformation. In THE DRESSER, costumes carry the weight of performance itself. Characters exist both as people and as theatre people preparing to become someone else.
Pierre’s nomination for Best Costume Designs recognizes that layered work. The costume world of the play supports both the backstage reality and the larger theatrical identity at the center of the story.
Best Direction of a Play
A director shapes rhythm, tone, movement, focus, and emotional clarity. In a play with intimate relationships and high stakes, direction must guide the audience without drawing attention away from the story.
Kevin G. Shinnick’s nomination for Best Direction of a Play honors the care required to balance humor, strain, affection, and theatrical pressure. THE DRESSER needs pace, but it also needs silence. It needs energy, but it also needs moments where one look can say what a speech cannot.
Best Ensemble
An Ensemble nomination is always special because it recognizes the whole living organism of a production. No single part can carry the full weight alone. The timing, listening, reactions, entrances, exits, and shared energy all matter.
The nomination for Best Ensemble honors the company of THE DRESSER as a group. It celebrates the way performers supported the world of the play together, not only in featured moments, but in the connective tissue between them.
Best Lighting Design for a Play
Lighting guides the audience’s eye, but it also shapes feeling. It can make a space feel public, private, theatrical, exposed, lonely, or alive. In a play that moves through backstage tension and onstage illusion, lighting becomes an essential storyteller.
Kenneth DeBot’s nomination for Best Lighting Design for a Play recognizes the visual atmosphere created for the production. Light helped define the world, support the emotional shifts, and deepen the experience for the audience.
Best Musical Direction and Best Sound Design
Sound can be subtle, but it changes everything. It sets mood, supports transitions, shapes memory, and helps the audience feel the space of the story. Musical direction and sound design also require a sharp sense of timing. If a cue arrives too early or too late, the moment changes.
Flynn Ayers is nominated for both Best Musical Direction and Best Sound Design. These recognitions speak to the production’s full sound world, from musical choices to the atmosphere that helped support the action on stage.
Best Performer in a Play
A central performance must carry story, emotion, rhythm, and presence. It must connect with scene partners while also holding the audience’s attention through the character’s internal turns.
James R. Franklin’s nomination for Best Performer in a Play celebrates that kind of work. In THE DRESSER, performance is not only about delivering lines. It is about revealing the cost of performance itself, what people give to theatre, what they hide from it, and what it asks of them in return. It is about creating a character that the audience gladly follows through the course of the story, concerned by them and reacting to the events that happen. James brought to life a marvelous multi-layered character in his performance as Norman. He is also one of the nicest, most giving performers , liked by both audiences as well as the rest of the creative team.
Best Play
The Best Play nomination for THE DRESSER is a recognition of the production as a complete theatrical experience. It honors the full collaboration, from the first rehearsal to the final performance.
For everyone involved, this nomination is especially meaningful. It says that the production reached audiences as a whole, not only through one element, but through the combined force of direction, performance, design, sound, music, and ensemble work.
Best Supporting Performer
Supporting performers often create the depth of a production. They bring texture, surprise, contrast, and emotional weight. They can shift the energy of a scene with one entrance or give the central story a new angle through one exchange.
We are proud that both Lisa Frisone and Shaun Milner are nominated for Best Supporting Performer. Their work helped build the world of the play and added to the richness of the production.
Favorite Local Theatre
The nomination for Favorite Local Theatre, MuCCC, is a reminder that theatre does not happen without spaces that welcome artists and audiences.
Local theatres are gathering places. They make room for risk, collaboration, new voices, familiar faces, difficult stories, and joyful evenings. Supporting MuCCC means supporting the kind of local theatre culture that allows productions like THE DRESSER to exist.
How you can help us win
Voting is one of the simplest ways to support a production after the curtain has closed.
If you enjoyed THE DRESSER, please vote in every category where we are nominated. A few minutes of your time can make a real difference, especially when friends, family, audience members, and theatre supporters all take part.
Here is how to help:
Visit the BroadwayWorld Buffalo Awards voting page. https://www.broadwayworld.com/buffalo/awards/
Look for the BroadwayWorld Buffalo 2026 Awards categories.
Vote for THE DRESSER and our nominees in the listed categories.
Share the voting information with friends, family, and fellow theatre lovers.
Encourage anyone who saw the show to cast their vote too.
Please remember the Best Supporting Performer category includes two of our nominees, Lisa Frisone and Shaun Milner. If you are voting in that category, look for both names and make your choice.
Your vote helps celebrate the artists, the production, and the local theatre community that made this work possible.
You can refresh your memory of the show as we are putting up the show on Youtube for a limited time. Watch and vote : YouTube "The Dresser Archival" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gnwsnnjd5s
Why audience support matters
Theatre is built on connection. A production begins with artists, but it becomes complete when an audience enters the room.
That is why audience support matters so much. When you vote, share a post, tell someone about a show, or invite a friend to attend local theatre, you help keep the work visible. You help make sure artists know their work was seen. You help remind the broader community that live performance still matters.
Local theatre often depends on that kind of word of mouth. A recommendation from one person to another can bring someone new into the room. A shared voting link can introduce a production to people who missed it. A public show of support can encourage artists to keep taking creative risks.
For THE DRESSER, these nominations already feel like a celebration. Winning would be an incredible honor, but the larger gift is knowing that people cared enough to respond.
Please spread the word
We are asking our community to help carry this news beyond the theatre walls.
Share the voting information with people who saw the production. Send it to friends who support local theatre. Mention it to anyone who follows the Buffalo theatre scene. If THE DRESSER stayed with you, invite others to help recognize the work.
A message can be simple:
THE DRESSER has been nominated in multiple BroadwayWorld Buffalo 2026 Awards categories. Please vote and help support the production, the artists, and MuCCC. https://www.broadwayworld.com/buffalo/awards/
That is all it takes.
The end of the year is a natural time to look back at the art we shared, the rooms we gathered in, and the stories that stayed with us. We are deeply grateful that THE DRESSER is part of that reflection.
Thank you to BroadwayWorld Buffalo for recognizing the production. Thank you to every artist and collaborator who gave their time and talent. Thank you to MuCCC for being part of the local theatre community. Most of all, thank you to the audiences and supporters who continue to show up.
Please vote for THE DRESSER in the BroadwayWorld Buffalo 2026 Awards, and help us spread the word.
Thank you for keeping LIVE THEATRE ALIVE !
(coming in 2027- THE CRIMSON THREAD )
-Kevin G Shinnick
Director
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