Pilar Gonzales received a supporting actress nomination for her role in Benicia High School’s production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” (File photo)

Once again, the nominations for the Arty Awards have been announced and once again, Benicia High School and Benicia Old Town Theatre Group (BOTTG) continue to dominate.

The Arty Awards honor theater productions at all grade levels in Napa and Solano counties. Last year, the ceremony was held at Downtown Theatre in Fairfield, and Benicia High took home 16 awards, including outstanding production honors for both its fall play and spring musical. Similarly, BOTTG won five trophies, including an outstanding production award for its drama “Two Trains Running.”

This year, the ceremony– now in its 33rd year– will be held at Solano Community College. Both Benicia High and BOTTG continue to rack up the nominees with a combined 41 nominations for both local theatrical institutions’ 2016-17 productions.

Benicia High School’s fall play, “12 Angry Men,” received eight nominees in the high school comedy/drama categories. Drama instructor Nathan Day received nods in the lighting design, sound design and directing categories, and Linda Wichelamann is in the running for costume design. Although “12 Angry Men” traditionally uses an all-male cast as the title would imply, many of the roles for Benicia High’s production were gender flipped to allow the school’s many talented female performers a chance to participate, paving the way for Paula Pagalan to receive a supporting actress nod. Additionally, Lucas Babot and Hamish Dinsdale netted nominations for actor and supporting actor respectively. The play itself is also in the running for being an outstanding high school drama production.

The school’s spring musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” fared even better with 12 nominations. Once again, Day received nominations for directing, lighting and sound design, and Wichelamann nabbed another nomination for costume design. Babot and Pagalan are also in the running for best actor and actress respectively. Daniel Manzo will also be in the running for best actor, and Garrison McNutt and Pilar Gonzales are respectively in the running for the supporting actor and supporting actress categories. Samantha Sanchez also received a nod for choreography, and Vivian McLaughlin was recognized in the musical direction category. Finally, “Putnam County” is up for outstanding high school musical production.

BOTTG also netted a lot of nominees. Jeff Sloan is up for sound design on both the comedy “The Game’s Afoot” and the drama “Intimate Apparel.” Ken Hein is up for lighting design for “Apparel,” Dan Clark and Clinton Vidal are up for set deign for “Apparel,” Brian Hough is competing in the same category for “Game” and Dyanne Vojvoda is nominated in the costume design category for both productions.

“Apparel” also racked up the adult drama nominations. Rebecca Grayce, Millee Holiday and AnJu Hyppolite are in the supporting actress category; Jason Berner is eligible for best supporting actor, Chelsea Bearce is up for best lead actress, Abel Habtegeorgis is up for best lead actor, and Clark is up for best director.

In the adult comedy category for “The Game’s Afoot,” Maureen Coyne and Natasha Harris are competing in the supporting actress category, Siobhan O’Brien and Paul Hughes are in the running in the lead actress and actor categories, and Vidal is eligible in the directing category.

Both BOTTG productions are in the running for the respective outstanding production categories.

At least two other nominees also have Benicia connections. Former Benicia High drama teacher Christine Mani– who won awards for several Panther Productions during her tenure– is up for best directing for her work on Solano College Theatre’s production of “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.” Sheena Beeson, a 2006 Benicia High graduate and current drama teacher at Armijo High School, received nods for lighting design and directing in that school’s productions of “Lucky Stiff” and “Almost Maine,” the latter of which she shares a directing credit with Derek Clawson.

The Artys will be held at 5 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 17 at SCC’s Performing Arts Center, located at 4000 Suisun Valley Road in Fairfield. An optional gala will be held at 4 p.m. Tickets are $25 for general admission plus a $3 service fee per ticket. Tickets can be purchased at solanoedu/theatre. For more information, including a full list of nominees, go to pan-arts.org/the-arty-awards.

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