LA Stage Alliance Disbands After Awards Ceremony Blunder

The organization that runs the annual competition honoring theater work in Los Angeles imploded after it misidentified an Asian-American actor.

Jully Lee, an actor and director, had a bad feeling about this year’s Ovation Awards, the annual competition honoring stage work in greater Los Angeles. She was a voter who had never been told when the ceremony would be, and she learned she was a nominee only when she was given 48 hours to submit a pretaped acceptance speech for use in the event that she won. She watched anyway. What she saw was not good. The awards ceremony, streamed online last week, showed a picture of a different Asian-American actress when announcing her category. And it mispronounced her name.