Rules and Regulations

1. Administration

1.1. The Manila Society of Theater Reviewers (the Society; MSTR) shall be a self-governing body with no maximum number of members.

1.2. Membership to the Society shall be renewed annually and will span January 1 to December 31 of the relevant year.

1.3. Society members must 1) watch as many productions as they can, within the limits of their time and resources, 2) regularly write theater reviews in their preferred style, and 3) publish their reviews in publicly accessible platforms.

1.4. The Society shall administer the MSTR Awards annually.

2. Awards eligibility 

2.1. Number of performances: A production must play a minimum of four (4) performances to qualify for the awards.

2.2. Viewership: A production must be seen by at least three (3) voting members of the Society to qualify for the awards. 

2.3. Origin: A production must have been developed, created, and premiered in the Philippines to qualify for the awards.

2.4. Newness: Only new productions will be considered for the awards. However, the definition of ‘new’ considers the institutional memory of the Society as an award-giving body. That is, a production is deemed new and eligible if it has never been considered for the awards within the history of the Society. Any subsequent run of an already-eligible production will no longer qualify for the awards, except for the new theatrical elements therein.   

2.5. Staging: All fully staged productions that open in Metro Manila during the relevant year will be eligible for the awards, provided they satisfy sections 2.1–2.4. A fully staged production is defined as a completely realized production across all theatrical elements, and is defined in opposition to staged readings, staged concerts, (dress) rehearsals, sneak peeks, workshop performances, and other forms of partial staging. The relevant year is defined as the period spanning January 1 to December 31.

2.6. Production level: A fully staged production can be produced by a professional company or a campus-based or student-led organization, or take the form of a thesis performance.

3. Awards categories

3.1. There are two (2) categories for production: Best Production of a Play and Best Production of a Musical. A production can either be a one-act or a full-length work.

3.2. There are four (4) categories for performance: Best Lead Performance in a Play, Best Featured Performance in a Play, Best Lead Performance in a Musical, and Best Featured Performance in a Musical. These categories are gender-neutral.

3.3. There is one (1) category for direction: Best Direction, which considers directorial achievements in plays and musicals, for one-act and full-length works.

3.4. There is one (1) category for design: Best Achievement in Design, which considers work across all design elements (sets or scenery, lighting, costumes, sound, musical direction or orchestration, graphics or projections, puppetry, and choreography or movement). 

3.5. There are two (2) categories recognizing new and/or promising work. Best New Filipino Work recognizes the playwright, librettist, and/or composer of an outstanding new piece of theater that makes its public premiere within the relevant calendar year. The Emerging Talent Award, as the name implies, recognizes promising, breakout, or breakthrough work from an individual in a particular field during the relevant calendar year. 

3.6. All categories except for Best Achievement in Design will aim to reward one (1) winner, followed by any number of honorable mentions, depending on the voting outcomes (see Section 4.5–4.10). 

3.7. Best Achievement in Design will normatively reward two (2) winners in cases where the winners are individual designers of particular shows, one (1) winner in cases that collectively reward a show’s design elements, or one (1) winner in cases that reward an individual designer’s body of work for the relevant year.

3.8. With respect to section 3.2, the categorization of a performer in either lead or featured categories will be up to the discretion of the voters, to be determined through internal deliberations.

3.9. With respect to section 3.2, voters may also deliberate and choose to reward an ensemble of actors for any of the acting categories.

3.10. With respect to sections 3.2, 3.3, and the Emerging Talent Award (3.5), voters may choose to recognize a winner for their body of work for the relevant year.  

3.11. A final category, Outstanding Contribution to the Theater, may be awarded by the Society on a case-by-case basis.

4. Voting

4.1. Voting is done to determine the winners and honorable mentions of each category.

4.2. Voting members of the Society cannot vote for works they did not see.

4.3. There will be a maximum of two (2) rounds of voting. Both rounds will utilize ranked-choice and weighted voting. 

4.4. For round one, for each category except Best Achievement in Design, voters will be asked to rank up to five (5) choices in descending order. For Best Achievement in Design, voters will be asked to rank up to ten (10). The ranking will then be multiplied by the weight of a voter’s vote (determined through an accounting of all the shows the voter gets to see during the relevant year). These ranked-weighted points per potential winner will then be added up. 

4.5. With regard to 4.4., if a voter saw at least eight-five percent (85%) of the eligible shows in a particular category, they will be given five (5) slots to fill for that category; if they saw at least fifty-five percent (55%) but fewer than eighty-five percent (85%), they will be given four (4) slots; if they saw fewer than fifty-five percent (55%), they will be given three (3) slots. For Best Achievement in Design, the available slots will be ten (10), eight (8), and seven (7), respectively.

4.6 With regard to 4.5., it is not necessary to fill all available slots when voting for potential winners; a voter may choose to rank as many or as few possible winners as they deem fit per category. 

4.7 The show or show element that gets the highest number of points in the process described in sections 4.4–4.6 will be declared the winner. For Best Achievement in Design, the two highest scorers will be declared the winners in cases where two (2) winners will be recognized (see section 3.7).

4.8 With respect to 4.7, a show or show element must appear in a majority (>50%) of ballots; otherwise, voting for that category will proceed to the second and final round (see section 4.10).

4.9 With respect to 4.4–4.8, all other shows or show elements that appear in at least three (3) ballots during round one will be declared honorable mentions.

4.10 In the second round of voting, voters will be asked to rank only the choices that appeared in the first round as potential winners. The highest scorer per category will be declared the winner, while the rest will be named honorable mentions.

4.11 Internal deliberations may be conducted by the Society for any category to finalize the winners and honorable mentions in special circumstances (e.g., to reward an individual for their body of work in instances where multiple works by that same individual are recognized separately by different voters).