For those who are not familiar with the AUDELCO Awards, AUDELCO (Audience Development Committe, Inc.) was established in 1973 by Vivian Robinson, to “generate more recognition, understanding and awareness of the arts in African-American communities.” For the past 40 years AUDELCO has promoted and celebrated African-American involvement in American Theatre. The Vivian Robinson/AUDELCO Awards known as the “VIV,” has become the pre-eminent recognition for African-American Theatre Artists. Past AUDELCO winners have included notables such as Eartha Kitt, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sanaa Lathan.
Much like the Tony's or the Academy Awards, in order to vote for a person or group you have to be a member of AUDELCO. In order to be a member, also known as Friends of AUDELCO, you must donate by October 31. The minimum amount to donate is $50 and you may do that here. Please consider donating not only to support Harlem KW Project, LLC, but to support Black theatre in general! One of our key messages is to support the arts and you can definitely do that by making a donation to AUDELCO no matter how you vote! For the official voting rules please click here.
We will conclude this blog post with a video from last year's AUDELCO Awards in which our very own, Hollis Heath, was interviewing our former director, Stephanie Berry, after she won an AUDELCO Award. This year we will one of the nominees, or hopefully one of the winners, being interviewed! We are SO excited!!