ICT Honored With 23 Robby Award Nominations and Wins

LONG BEACH — International City Theatre has been honored with three wins and 20 additional nominations for four different productions by longtime theater reviewer Rob Stevens, who has announced his 35th annual “Robby Awards for Excellence in Southern California Theatre.”

In Stevens’ Dec. 31 post at media outlet Haines His Way, 25 productions throughout the Southland garnered a total of 131 nominations, with International City Theatre’s recent production of the Sheldon Epps-conceived musical Blues in the Night leading all productions with 10 nominations. The musical won three awards, including for Best Musical (caryn desai, producer), Best Actress in a Musical (Vivian Reed) and Best Musical Direction (William Foster McDaniel).

Other nominated ICT productions include Closely Related Keys, a hard-hitting family drama by Wendy Graf, which marked the company’s first return to in-person performance since the start of the pandemic; The Andrews Brothers, a musical salute to the swinging

’40s written and created by Roger Bean, which was produced in February 2020 prior