The L.A. Weekly has terminated its annual theater awards, which honored excellence in productions in theaters of up to 99-seats. The Awards had been around since the newspaper’s inception in 1979. The first theater Awards ceremony was held in 1980. The “Lawees” evolved in to a raucous and irreverent celebration of the art, and of the community that produced it. This year’s Awards , hosted by Zombie Joe’s Underground, marked the 35th consecutive party, and the last. With the 2014 jury writing for Stage Raw, and having been seeing productions all year for these Awards, Stage Raw is positioned to take them over in 2015.

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So why can’t an ensemble consist of one actor plus designers and technicians? Are they not on the same team? Wouldn’t this argument make our Hollywood Fringe, with its overwhelming majority of solo performances, a cauldron of ensemble work? Los Angeles Master chorale puts that argument to rest.

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Stage Raw goes undercover at an AEA (Actors Equity) union meeting, plus more facts fictions in the recent chatter about the 99-Seat Plan, and how it might be improved.

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There’s talk of revolution, talk of retrenchment, talk that L.A. theater needs to grow up, talk that it needs to grow down, talk that all the talk is being artificially stirred . . .

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Our growing inability to accept, or even hear, views contrary to our own derives largely from the way social media feeds and then tries to sell us news, opinions and outlets we already agree with. What is the point of words if nobody is listening? One performance in Erik Patterson’s “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (at Theatre of Note through August 30) that lingers relentlessly is that of Phil Ward, portraying a man named Frank recovering from the effects of a brain aneurism, much like in Emilie Beck’s “Sovereign Body,” earlier this year at Road Theatre Company. In that play, Taylor Gilbert portrayed a woman named Anna suddenly struck down by an unspecified brain disorder that left her, like Frank, fighting for words. . . Yet in Okwui Okpokwasili’s “Bronx Gothic,” words are shards that cut and gouge . . .

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On the Virtues of Mediocrity: There are complaints in the ether made by those whose names shall not be named, who write for websites that do not weave, that theater is so awful because 1) it is awash in mediocrity, 2) there’s too much of it (theater and mediocrity, that is) and that 3) critics (this would include bloggers) are too forgiving of all that theater and of all that mediocrity.

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Playwright-director-producer Diana Gibson died July 17 of complications from pneumonia. She cemented her legacy in local theater during the 1980s and 1990s by producing 10 comedies by Justin Tanner at Hollywood’s now defunct Cast Theatre on El Centro, where she worked as associate artistic director and then artistic director (after her associate Ted Schmitt died in 1990). Justin recalls those tempestuous years. This week’s Notes also includes recollections of Diana by Deborah Lawlor, associate artistic director of the Fountain Theatre, where Diana worked as subscriptions manager until she died.

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It started with a letter of complaint from Anteaus Company’s press rep, Lucy Pollak, regarding my review of Kenneth Cavander’s “The Curse of Oedipus” — a new play derived from excerpts of ancient Greek texts: We have some corrections, Lucy wrote, but you don’t have to make them if you don’t want. Hmmm. The author was clearly vexed, breaking his own rule never to respond to a review. I wrote back, explaining my position. With Lucy’s intervention, Kenneth and I were soon speaking by phone. We agreed to debate our way through the thickets of his play, and of ancient Greek mythology. That debate is this week’s Notes.

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How is that Independent Shakespeare Company, among the most successful as a business as any of its kind in the region, a theater company that provides such obvious value, should get so little value in return? – not the value of validation and gratitude, but the other kind, the kind that exists in the land where people need to pay for leases and mortgages and college tuition and taxes and insurances and gasoline and utilities and food.

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When he was in his early 50s, Roger Crane, an unproduced playwright, couldn’t get his work taken seriously in the U.S. When he sent his play “The Last Confession” (without an agent) to England’s National Theatre, he got all kinds of promising feedback. Britain eventually embraced the play. It’s now receiving a world tour.

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