Dewy Brooks. Janet Seibert. Lisa Byrd. Bruce Willenzik. Salvage Vanguard Theater. What do they all have in common? Well, each one has made hugely valuable contributions to the city’s creative scene. And because of that, each is being honored by the Austin Creative Alliance at the North Door tonight.
For the past few years, the Alliance – the local membership organization that advocates for and makes connections among all of the city’s creative communities, from arts to film to live music and beyond – has made a point of paying tribute to individuals and organizations who have made sustained and substantial contributions to culture and creativity in Austin through the ACA Honors. You can get a sense of the breadth of these awards from a list of its prior recipients: former City Council Member Laura Morrison; DiverseArts Culture Works founder and cultural historian Harold McMillan; actor, educatior, and Spectrum Theatre Company co-founder Dr. Billy F. Harden; pioneering music journalist, former Music Commission member, and music community advocate Margaret Moser; hotelier and arts patron extraordinaire Liz Lambert; City Cultural Affairs Division manager Laura Esparza; Blair Dancy of Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts; the Austin Film Society, Austin Arts Minute host and arts patron Carla McDonald, the Applied Materials Foundation. Mexic-Arte Museum, the Austin Film Society.
In their fourth year, the ACA Honors go out to Janet Seibert, the tireless advocate for creative programs in the city’s Cultural Arts Division; Lisa Byrd, past director of the African American Cultural Heritage District and of Dance Umbrella; Dewy Brooks, longtime ACA board member and co-founder of ProArts Collective; Bruce Willenzik, the engine behind the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar and the oldest living Arts Commissioner (wink); and groundbreaking (and currently homeless) stage company Salvage Vanguard Theater. As I think you’ll agree, there’s a lot there to honor.
As if that weren’t enough, the program promises a bounty of entertainment from One Ounce Opera, comedian Maggie Maye, DJ Orion, Matt Armbruster of Tetractys performing a work for solo cello by Yevgeniy Sharlat, and house band the Invincible Czars, and ACA Director John Riedie (also the emcee for the evening) has been teasing a major announcement that will “impact the community conversation about the decline in affordable space and displacement of arts organizations in Austin.”
Admission for ACA members is free, but registration is required. Tickets for non-members are $40, which is also the same price for a year’s membership in the Alliance, so why not just join? The fun begins at 6pm. The honors are presented at 7pm.
Austin Creative Alliance will be held Wed., Nov. 16, 6pm, at the North Door, 502 Brushy. For more information, visit the ACA website.
This article appears in November 11 • 2016.