As an all-volunteer organization, we just don’t have enough people to cover all of the incredible work happening in the surrounding cities. Years ago, we set the Austin city limits as our boundary. This ensures that our group is able to provide the coverage we require internally.

We feel pretty strongly that the community be involved in selecting the winners for one very sneaky reason: we think it encourages people to get out and see more theatre. Scrolling through the ballot and not being able to vote on much makes it really clear that there’s an abundance of excellent work being produced, and is a gentle nudge to support more live theatre.

If you produce theatre, it’s easy to put your head down in your work in your silos and lose sight of the greater community. Even if you’re not able to see more work, the act of reading through the names of other organizations brings a greater sense of community.

Currently, winners are determined by averaging the votes of the BIPAC Council Members with the votes of the public. We've found that this ensures that productions with smaller houses that are beloved by the Council have a chance of winning regardless of "popularity."

We begin by recruiting a diverse group of passionate Adjudicators. If you’ve ever tried to get thirty passionate artists to agree on one thing, you know that consensus is hard-won.

We also employ a strict conflict of interest policy. Should a Council Member have a conflict of interest in an eligible production, they must leave the room during any discussion on that production, and may not vote for them in any way.

BIPAC defines a conflict of interest as being nominable for the production, drawing a paycheck from the production or the producing company, or sharing a roof, blood, or bed with anyone nominable for a production.

We routinely host city-wide cast parties for the express purpose of providing opportunities for the community at large to meet each other and break down the silos into which our community may have aligned themselves. We encourage everyone to attend these events, and, if you’re interested in meeting new people, approach any BIPAC member and ask to be introduced around. Our members attend these functions with the goal of introducing community members who may have similar interests.

We do our best not to duplicate the services of other wonderful organizations in Austin, including our friends at ATX Theatre and Austin Creative Alliance, but support them whenever we can.

Everyone on our mailing list at midnight on August 31st will receive a ballot for that year. You can join our mailing list from the bottom of any page on this website.