Paramount Theatre Artistic Director Jim Corti will receive the 2022 Guy Adkins Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Music Theatre this spring at an annual charity concert event in May hosted by Porchlight Music Theatre of Chicago.
Named in honor of the late award-winning Chicago actor Guy Adkins, a selection committee designated by Porchlight Music Theatre gives the annual honor to an artist “who has made an exceptional and lasting contribution to the state of the art of Chicago music theatre.”
The award will be presented at Porchlight’s annual Chicago Sings fundraising concert, featuring the 2022 theme “Chicago Sings Stephen Sondheim,” on May 23 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. in downtown Chicago.
Corti, 72, is hailed as the artistic visionary who inaugurated Paramount’s Broadway Series in the fall of 2011. With critically recognized stage productions, audiences quickly embraced the “Broadway in the Suburbs” new ticket opportunity and by 2015, Paramount’s Broadway Series became Jeff Award eligible and has since garnered 45 nominations with 16 wins.
Corti holds the career distinction of being the only director to have two productions in the same year in the Chicago Tribune’s list of “10 Best Shows” for his accolades for both his Drury Lane run of “Cabaret” and his Writers Theatre’s “Oh, Coward!” in 2009.
He also remains the only honoree to date to have won Jeff Awards as an actor (Marriott’s “Grand Hotel”), choreographer (Drury Lane’s “Singin’ in the Rain”) and director (Paramount’s “The Producers,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Les Miserables” along with Drury Lane’s “Sweet Charity” and Northlight’s “Blues in the Night”).
“Jim Corti is the 11th recipient of this honor and he is an ambassador for everything Chicagoland theatre represents,” said Porchlight Music Theatre Artistic Director Michael Weber. “There’s a clear criteria for who should receive this award as explained on our website and Jim meets every qualification and always goes above and beyond to especially help the new generations of the theater community.
“He started as an actor and then went to Broadway in New York and then national tours, known for his roles such as in the original cast of ‘A Chorus Line’ and originating the role of Houdini in ‘Ragtime,'” he said. “But then, he opted to come back to Chicagoland to continue his incredible theater career and also foster the careers of so many other talents.”
The selection committee for the Guy Adkins Award is comprised of previous recipients of the award. The award’s namesake Guy Adkins, a favorite talent at Steppenwolf, Marriott Theatre, The Court and Chicago Shakespeare Theater, among other stages, died of colon cancer in 2010 at age 41.
Porchlight’s 2022 Chicago Sings charity concert event will also salute Stephen Sondheim with a performance from a cast of Chicago headlining talents, in addition to the Guy Adkins Award ceremony and celebration. Tickets range from $50 to $150 and are available at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org.
Philip Potempa is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
