What is the craziest thing you remember from the IT Awards?

As we wrap up our 10 year anniversary, we asked a few of our friends about their fondest memories of the Innovative Theatre Foundation and the IT Awards.
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Stephanie Cox-Williams: The Brick's acceptance/performance upon receiving the Caffé Cino.

Jeff Riebe: It would be unethical to say. ;)

Desmond Dutcher: Interviewing The Blue Man Group back stage.

Blake Lawrence: The week before that first awards show. We really didn’t know what to expect! My crazy memories are mostly about directing the ceremony - presenters going missing right before their entrances, presenting the wrong award, people speaking entirely too long, all the fun stuff of a live show!

Daniel Talbott: I don't know about the craziest but I really love all the folks who have received the Artistic Achievement awards and their dedication videos and speeches always really inspire me. Boring answer I know, and I also remember a guy accidentally pissing all over my shoes in the guys' room the year RPR was the Cino recipient. I was so nervous about having to talk that I didn't even realize it was happening and he was so drunk already he didn't either. We cracked up about it though and I felt like a ten year old again, and it made me a ton less nervous, which rocked. :)

Ellen Reilly: Being hugged by Ben Vereen backstage! I never saw it coming, he was just hugging everyone!

Jason Bowcutt: The Frisbee moment. An audience of 600+ being encouraged by one of the founders of Blue Man Group to reach into their gift bags, find the Frisbee and "do whatever comes to mind." Of course it was followed by Frisbees filling the entire theatre at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Christopher Borg: CERTAINLY, the craziest moment was when Bill Irwin encouraged the audience at the award ceremony to take the white frisbees out of the gift bags that everyone had been given when they entered and throw them! There was a huge WAVE of white frisbees in the air and hurtling toward the stage- I've never seen anything like that.  A little scary and a LOT hilarious!

Kathleen Warnock: I loved it when Lisa Kron showed us the container catalog she liked to look at. And, of course, the Frisbees. And this year, as the host kept taking off his clothes!

Shay Gines: Last year the ceremony was running ahead of schedule (no, that is not the crazy part). Stephen Schwartz was presenting our final two awards and he was running a little late. Our host, Harrison Greenbaum was asked to go onstage and “stretch” while we waited for Mr. Schwartz to arrive. Meanwhile we were preparing to enact our contingency plan, which is Nick, Jason and I presenting the award. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more stressed. We had the script in-hand and were literally on the verge of walking onstage when Mr. Schwartz walked through the doors.

Akia: What people don’t see after the show.  Nick, myself, our Stage managers and interns usually are up for about 22 hours on Awards Show Day.  By the end of the day we have loaded and unloaded the truck 5 to 8 times, by the time we get to our storage unit, we’ve been up an entire day and usually on 2 or 3 hours of sleep the night before.  We have some outrageously silly moments, and it’s inevitable that I’ll have an exhausted meltdown which ends with all of us in unstoppable laughter on the floor (Literally, tears from laughing so hard, on the floor rolling).

The ritual is then diner breakfast and getting home around 4am.  Sometimes we’ve had to drop people off at the airport before going home. It’s rough, but there are some magic moments of theatre bonding that no one else gets to see.