B&B Gets FIVE Drammy Nominations!

In our first year of eligibility, we have received five (count ’em, FIVE) Drammy Award nominations! Check out the story from the Hillsboro Tribune (linked here)!

Bag & Baggage picks up five nominations for 2017 Portland theater awards

Created on Tuesday, 06 June 2017 | Written by John William Howard

The pending sale of the Venetian Theatre and Bistro threw a wrench into the 2016-17 season for the Bag & Baggage theater company.

Left without a performance space in March, the company moved its production of ‘Brontë’ to the Brookwood Library. Limited seating and limited performances meant fewer patrons saw the story of the Bronte sisters, three British authors, appropriately sandwiched between racks of books.

Now, Bronte is one of two Bag & Baggage shows up for Portland-area theater awards.

The play ‘Bronte’ received Drammy Award nominations for Best Ensemble and Best Production. ‘The Drowning Girls,’ presented in October 2016, received nominations for Best Ensemble, Best Lighting and Best Actress. Nominations were also made for musical productions.

“I’m thrilled that ‘Bronte,’ with all the struggles of trying to get that show produced, secured a best play nomination,” said Scott Palmer, the company’s Founding Artistic Director. “It’s incredibly gratifying.”

Bag & Baggage received the first Drammy Award nominations of its 10-year history this spring, a move Palmer said was step toward widespread critical acclaim in the Portland metro area. The Drammy Awards, which are celebrating 39 years this summer, traditionally considered Hillsboro out of reach for Portland theater critics. But the company has grown, receiving a national award in 2015 and became an established presence in the theater community.

The Drammy Awards will look at Bag & Baggage, along with Clackamas Repertory Theater, for permanent consideration after the award ceremony on June 26 at Portland State University.

“It’s great,” Palmer said of the nominations. “For us, it means we are invited, in what appears to be a successful invitation, into a peer group in the Portland metro area. It does a lot for our broader standing in the metro region.”

Palmer said he looks forward to operating in Bag & Baggage’s new space on Main Street. The production of Romeo & Juliet/Layla & Majnun, an adaption of Shakespeare’s famed work, is set to open on July 20 at the Hillsboro Civic Center Plaza.

“Folks out here already know we do good work,” Palmer said. “I think a lot of people in Portland expect we do good work. This is a real stamp of approval from colleagues in our region.”