Most forward-thinking people have come to see the inherent problem with “gendered awards” like Best Actor and Best Actress. It’s just how everyone has always done it, from the Oscars to the Emmys to the Tonys to local awards programs like the Colorado Theatre Guild’s Henry Awards and the Denver Center’s Bobby G Awards, which celebrate achievements in Colorado high-school theater.

But in an increasingly fluid world, the notion that there are only two genders has become overly simplistic given that 1.6% of American adults identify as nonbinary, or about 5.3 million people, and about 5% of young adults say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth.

But the problem with the problem is that there is no obvious solution to the problem. Because the obvious knee-jerk solution would be to just put everyone in the same acting pool. And that would not go well for women and trans actors, given the overwhelming disparity in performing opportunities favoring straight cisgendered men. 

Sunday’s Tony Awards made history when J. Harrison Ghee of “Some Like it Hot” and Alex Newell of “Shucked” became the first nonbinary people to win Tonys for acting. Months ago, both were made to choose whether to be considered as an actor or actress. When the answer is “neither,” forcing someone to choose a category that doesn’t align with their true identity doesn’t solve anything. 

Nonbinary Denver actor B Glick called Sunday’s milestone monumental yet problematic.

“We need to eliminate the gender binary in performance altogether,” said Glick, who is appearing through July 1 in “Stonewall,” a world-premiere play developed by Lakewood’s Benchmark Theatre, and will next perform as Oberon in the disability-affirmative Phamaly Theatre Company’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” opening Aug. 17 at the Denver Center’s Wolf Theatre.

“No other category is gender-based,” Glick added. “It is not up to any awards body to forcibly binary any individual, nor is it for any individual to forcibly suffer losing part of themselves in order to be recognized.”

New York actor Justin David Sullivan of the jukebox musical “& Juliet,” who self-identifies as a trans nonbinary actor, abstained from consideration for the Tony Awards rather than choose a label that doesn’t fit.

On Thursday, the statewide Henry Awards nominations were announced, and they included perhaps the first open nonbinary nominee in its 17-year history. It went to the single-named and lower-cased eden, who is nominated as a supporting actress for the Aurora Fox’s baseball play “Toni Stone.” Like the Tonys, all performers were given the choice to be considered as an actor or actress. The newly nominated eden is a 2022 graduate of the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

“I don’t think that’s the right answer, but it is the best answer anyone has come up with so far, because at least the person is getting to choose,” said Lisa Young, a CTG board member and founder of the advocacy group IDEA Stages.

The Bobby G Awards took a compelling half-step toward a solution last month when it decided against naming its traditional Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress winners in favor of simply announcing two Outstanding Performances in a Leading Role, which went to Camille Nugent of Fossil Ridge High School and Connor O’Brian of Lakewood High School. The acting categories remain separate and fully gendered in their consideration, but no gender-specific words were used in publicly announcing the winners at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House ceremony in May.

“I was honestly really excited when I heard they were making that change,” Nugent said. “Using gender-specific terms is no longer inclusive, it isn’t helpful and it really isn’t necessary. I know people who don’t align with either gender. And I think that if I were being identified in a way that didn’t fit, I would feel automatically excluded from the running. I don’t think you should have to sacrifice a part of your identity to be considered for an award. That we’re moving away from that, I think, is wonderful.”

No matter how you approach the issue, Young admitted: It’s messy.

“This is a very layered thing we have to pull apart and look at,” she said. “The most important thing is, we need to bring the people who are affected by this into the conversation. We should not be making these decisions for folks.”

COVID KOs Steamboat play festival

Apologies for sounding like a broken record, but COVID has not gone away, and it has not stopped wreaking havoc on local arts performances. We just aren’t talking about it as much because, a) No one is keeping proper track of positive cases anymore, and b) No one wants to hear it. Nevertheless …

The Colorado New Play Festival, which has brought partnering theater companies from around the country to Steamboat Springs since 1996 to develop new plays for the American theater, has sort of canceled this year’s event after positive COVID cases within the creative company. “Sort of” because the scheduled readings are still going on this weekend, but the public won’t be allowed onto the grounds of the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School “to keep our audiences and our company safe,” the fest announced. Not sure how that works for the safety of those on the inside who don’t have COVID, but …

Denver Center Broadway news

The Tony Awards largely exist to drum up excitement for national touring productions of Broadway’s best, and right on cue, here comes “Kimberly Akimbo,” which not only won Best Musical on Sunday – it will launch its first national tour in Denver in September 2024. … Meanwhile, nicely (if coincidentally) timed with the impending reopening of the Casa Bonita restaurant (have you heard anything about that yet?), back for its latest round of Latter-Day tickling is Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s bad boy of Broadway, “The Book of Mormon.” I’ve honestly lost track of how many times the high-lariously profane tuner has taken its mission to Denver since also debuting its first national tour here in 2012, but it’s back again from June 21-25, and it’s apparently still popular enough to offer a daily lottery for cheap front-row seats. Details at denvercenter.org.

Briefly …

The National Endowment for the Arts just announced $1,075,000 in grants to support programming centered around a contemporary book. The only Colorado nonprofit chosen for the initiative, called the NEA Big Read Library, was The Word: A Storytelling Sanctuary, which exists to promote a more diverse publishing industry. It earned $20,000 to inspire meaningful conversations around Natalie Diaz’s book “Postcolonial Love Poem,” which is described as “an anthem of desire against erasure.” …

Denver Film is partnering with Black Pride Colorado to host a free Black Pride Block Party from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The festivities will take over the outside parking lot just south of the Tattered Cover Bookstore. Music from DJ Bella Scratch, dancing, food, drag performances and more. RSVP at cinemaq.eventive.org …

Chatfield High and University of Northern Colorado grad Jamie Ann Romero will be an understudy in the upcoming Broadway production of “The Cottage,” a zany new farce by Sandy Rustin about a woman who decides to expose her latest affair with the man’s wife. It opens July 7 in New York and stars big-time stars Eric McCormack (“Will & Grace”), Laura Bell Bundy, who originated the role of Amber Von Tussle on Broadway’s “Hairspray,” and SNL alum Alex Moffat. Last year, Romero directed “The River Bride” for the Arvada Center …

Denver’s Pop Culture Classroom has named Tyler Page’s “Button Pusher” its Book of the Year as part of its annual Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards. It’s the story of a boy who is diagnosed with ADHD. Additionally, Gaspard Talmasse’s true story “Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War” earned the Mosaic Award, which honors stories about diverse communities, ethnicities, nationalities, faiths and identities …

Tickets to the 2023-24 Newman Center Presents season go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday (June 16). Highlights include Grammy Awards Best New Artist Samara Joy and the legendary Martha Graham Dance Company. But I’ve got my eyes peeled for “Dog Man: The Musical,” which follows the chronicles of a crime-fighting cop with the head of a dog, coming Sept. 8-9. It’s based on the bestselling series by Dav Pilkey. Info at newmancenterpresents.com …

And finally …

The Colorado theater community is grieving the June 10 death of veteran actor Kent Sugg, who performed in 36 shows at The Candlelight in Johnstown and many more at BDT Stage in Boulder. Sugg was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2018.