Tony Award-winning sound designer Robert Kaplowitz has a few things to say about awards, for theater, winning the bowling league, whatever. The nut of the piece, for me, is his eloquent rationale for recognizing good work:
Theater awards matter because theater vanishes. Paintings, sculptures, novels, and poems can last for centuries, or millennia. And, while scripts live on, productions themselves last only as long as that magical assemblage of actors, stagehands, musicians, stage managers, craftspeople and front-of-house staff are together. They enact the staging of one particular director, the movement of one specific choreographer, those particular words said or sung in that exact environment created by those exact designers, and (in musicals) conducted by that specific conductor. It exists only as long as that group gives it life.
What’s special about Kaplowitz’s post is how inclusive it is, recognizing almost everyone who contributes to the theatrical experience. And again,
…[my Tony award] was an honor that resonated throughout my team, and reflected back on the entire company of Fela!