LOS ANGELES — The big winner of the first annual Progie Theater Awards for outstanding L.A. progressive plays and artists of conscience and consciousness is Stephen Sachs, who has just stepped down as the Fountain Theatre’s Founding Artistic Director. Sachs and his play won a total of four Progie Awards, including in the Best Progressive Playwriting and Directing categories, plus his Jan. 6 docudrama Fatherland won for Best Progressive Play and Best Anti-Fascist Play.
Below is a list of all of the Progie Theater Award winners, along with the nominees in the different categories named after iconic progressive theater artists who are pro-people, pro-working class, pro-women, pro-LGBTQA, pro-environment, anti-war, anti-racist, anti-fascist, etc.
The Progie Theater Awards are the “un-Tony,” the people’s “alternative Tony Awards” that honor Los Angeles area plays and stage talents of conscience and consciousness. L.A.- based theater critics reviewing for Hollywood Progressive, People’s World and KPFK Pacifica Radio democratically voted for the Progie nominees and then chose the winners from the nominations. There are up to five nominees per category and only one winner (except in the case of ties). The 2025 Progie Theater Awards are for the period of September 2023 through Dec. 31, 2024.
The Progie Theater Award winners are:
THE BRECHT: The Progie Theater Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE PLAY, named after German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who wrote Mother Courage, The Mother, Galileo, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, etc., goes to: Fatherland (Fountain Theatre).
The other Brecht nominees were: I, Daniel Blake (Fountain Theatre), Crevasse (Son of Semele and The Victory Theatre Center), Blood at the Root (Open Fist Theatre Company), and This is Not a True Story (Los Angeles Theatre Center).
THE SHAW: The Progie Theater Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE PLAYWRIGHT is named after the Irish bard George Bernard Shaw and goes to: Stephen Sachs (Fatherland)
The other Shaw nominees were: Tom Jacobson (Crevasse), Philip W. Chung (Unbroken Blossoms), Preston Choi (This is Not a True Story), and Michelle Kholos Brooks (H*tler’s Tasters).
THE WELLES: The Progie Theater Award for BEST DIRECTOR of a progressive play is named after Orson Welles, actor and director of stage and screen, who during the 1930s presented the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project plays Voodoo Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, the Mercury Theatre’s modern dress Julius Caesar, and directed a Broadway production of Richard Wright’s Native Son in 1941-42. The Welles goes to: Stephen Sachs (Fatherland).
The other Welles nominees were: Melora Marshall (Tartuffe, Born Again), Jeff Liu (Unbroken Blossoms), Ron Sossi (Stalin’s Master Class), and Guillermo Cienfuegos (Misalliance).
THE ROBESON: The Progie Theater Award for the play with the BEST PORTRAYAL OF PEOPLE OF COLOR that shatters societal and stage stereotypes is named after legendary singer, actor, activist Paul Robeson, who starred on Broadway in Show Boat and Othello. The Robeson is a tie, and the co-winners are: Middle of the World (Rogue Machine) and Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green (Fountain Theatre).
The other Robeson nominees were: Lines in the Dust (Collaborative Artists Bloc & Support Black Theatre), Two Stop (Ensemble Studio Theatre), and Antíkoni (Native Voices).
THE ARISTOPHANES: The Progie Theater Award for BEST PRO-PEACE PLAY is named after the great Greek playwright who wrote the comedies Lysistrata and Peace, and the winner is: A Good Guy (Rogue Machine).
The other Aristophanes nominees were: Memnon (Getty Villa’s Outdoor Classical Theater), The Skin of Our Teeth (A Noise Within), The Winter’s Tale (Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum), and Luzmi (Hero Theatre).
THE HELLMAN: The Progie Theater Award for BEST ANTI-FASCIST PLAY is named after playwright Lillian Hellman, who wrote the 1941 anti-Nazi play Watch on the Rhine, and the winner is: Fatherland (Fountain Theatre).
The other Hellman nominees are: Crevasse (Son of Semele and The Victory Theatre Center), Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Rogue Machine), TH IR DS (Last Exit Productions), and The Bauhaus Project, Parts I & II (Open Fist Theatre Company).
THE LORCA: The Progie Theater Award for BEST PRO-LGBTQ RIGHTS PLAY is named after Spanish poet, playwright and theater director Federico García Lorca, who wrote The Public, which couldn’t be staged until 1978, 40 years after his death at the hands of Franco’s fascists. The winner of the Lorca is: Design for Living (The Odyssey Theatre).
The other Lorca nominees are: Dear Mr. Bottrell, I Cannot Possibly Accept This (Rogue Machine), It’s Only a Show! (Ruskin Group Theatre), Monsters of the American Cinema (Rogue Machine), and The Real Black Swann: Confessions of America’s First Black Drag Queen (The Davidson/Valentini Theatre).
THE ODETS: The Progie Theater Award for the MOST POSITIVE AND INSPIRING WORKING-CLASS STAGE IMAGE is named after playwright Clifford Odets, who wrote Depression-era proletarian plays such as Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing! The Odets winner is: I, Daniel Blake (Fountain Theatre).
The other Odets nominees are: The Bespoke Overcoat (Pacific Resident Theatre), God Will Do the Rest (Los Angeles Theatre Center), King Hedley II (A Noise Within), and Mystic Pizza (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts).
THE BLITZSTEIN: The Progie Theater Award for the BEST PROGRESSIVE MUSICAL is named after composer Marc Blitzstein, who wrote the music, lyrics and story for 1937’s pro-union The Cradle Will Rock. There is a four-way tie and the Blitzstein winners are: The Last Dream of Frida and Diego (LA Opera), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (A Noise Within), The Red Rose (NYC’s Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater at Latino Theater Company), and American Mariachi (Latino Theater Company).
The other Blitzstein nominee was: Camelot (Laguna Playhouse).
THE IONESCO: The Progie Theater Award for the MOST SLYLY SUBVERSIVE SATIRICAL STAGE SHOW in terms of form, style and content is named after Eugene Ionesco, who wrote the absurdist 1959 play Rhinoceros, and the winner is: Tartuffe: Born Again (Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum).
The other Ionesco nominees were: Design for Living (Odyssey Theatre), Misalliance (A Noise Within), Into the Woods (Knot Free Productions in association with Greenway Arts Alliance), and The Last Dream of Frida and Diego (LA Opera).
THE REDGRAVE: The Progie Theater Award for BEST PRO-FEMINIST DEPICTION OF WOMEN by an actress is named after leftist actress Vanessa Redgrave, who has starred on stage and screen and won Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk and other awards for her theater performances in plays such as Ibsen’s The Seagull and O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. The Redgrave winner is: Xochitl Romero (The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/ Latinx/Latine Vote).
The other Redgrave nominees were: Evangeline Edwards (A Good Guy), Julia Cho (This is Not a True Story), Ann Noble (Crevasse), and Jennifer Shelton (The Double V).
THE ZERO: The Progie Theater Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE ACTOR is named after Zero Mostel, who was blacklisted, then made a triumphant comeback as the slave who yearns to be free in 1962’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and as a simple Ukrainian Jewish dairy farmer in 1964’s Fiddler on the Roof. The Zero winner is: JD Cullum (I, Daniel Blake).
The other Zero nominees were: J. Alphonse Nicholson (Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green), Ron Bottitta (Fatherland), Gerald C. Rivers (The Piano Lesson), and Leo Marks (Crevasse).
THE HELEN KELLER: The Helen Keller Award honors the best play about and/or performer with disabilities. William Gibson’s Broadway play The Miracle Worker swept the Tony Awards in 1960, starring Patty Duke as Helen Keller, who was born blind and deaf. Keller went on to become famous for overcoming great obstacles, as well as a suffragist, pacifist, socialist and ACLU co-founder. The Keller is a tie and the co-winners are: Patient 13, A Dark Comedy Show (Gail Thomas, Rogue Machine), and God Will Do the Rest (Los Angeles Theatre Center).
The other Keller nominees were: Wendy’s Peter Pan (Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum), The Substance of Fire (Ruskin Group Theatre), and Waiting for Godot (The Geffen Playhouse).
THE MILLER: The Progie Theater Award for LIFETIME PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENT ON- AND OFFSTAGE is named after playwright Arthur Miller, who wrote 1949’s Death of a Salesman, 1953’s The Crucible, 1955’s A View from the Bridge, 1964’s Incident at Vichy, etc. And it’s Miller time for: John Perrin Flynn (Rogue Machine).
The other Miller nominees were: Ellen Geer (Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum), Stephen Sachs (Fountain Theatre), Tim Robbins (The Actors’ Gang), Ron Sossi (Odyssey Theatre), and Geoff Elliott (A Noise Within).
Congratulations to all of the Progie Theater Award winners!
As Augusto Boal, founder of the Theater of the Oppressed who was kidnapped, arrested, tortured, then exiled by Brazil’s military regime, said: “The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it,” and “The theater itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.”
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