Diversionary Theatre has been honored with several awards this month, with two recognitions from the annual Patté Awards for Theater Excellence and a top award from the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle.

“It was a terrific year of theater,” said KPBS theater critic Pat Launer, host, co-producer and awards presenter for the Patté Awards. “There were great productions and performances, but it was really the year of the ensemble.”

Out of the six awards for Outstanding Ensemble, Diversionary was honored for its production of A Bright Room Called Day. The play was the second production in Diversionary’s current season, performed last November in collaboration with Backyard Productions.

“For me, the beauty in this piece is the absolute timelessness of it,” said Jessica John, artistic director of Backyard Productions. “The questions we tackle in the midst of political upheaval remain the same throughout time, because, as human beings, our hearts will continue to beat with hope for ultimate good.”

The ensemble cast featured the talents of Priscilla Allen, Richard Baird, Amy Biedel, Robin Christ, Ron Choularton, Jason Connors, Jessica John, Daren Scott, Amanda Sitton and Lauren Zimmerman. Michelle Hunt also won an Outstanding Costume Design award for the same show.

In 1997, Launer created the Patté Awards (because theatermakers “ain’t chopped liver!” he said.) to celebrate the diversity of San Diego theater, to offer recognition to local theater artists – from the smaller, up-and-coming theaters to the big, well-known companies – and to give something back to the theater community. The awards were presented Jan. 9. For a complete list of Patté Award winners, visit www.kpbs.com.

From the previous season, Rebecca Basham’s lesbian comedy Wrinkles has been awarded Best New Play for 2005 by the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle.

“I think it’s great,” Basham said from her New Jersey home. “It’s always nice to be recognized by other theater professionals. It was quite surprising, because it was a year later.”

Wrinkles was performed last January and starred Lisel Gorel-Getz, Sally Stockton and Terri Parks. It was Basham’s second play performed at Diversionary – her pervious show was Lot’s Daughters – and was the theater’s first world premiere production in years. Basham said Wrinkles was written specifically for Diversionary.

“Chuck Zito [Diversionary’s artistic director at the time] asked me in 2003 if I had a play about older lesbians. I said, ‘No, I don’t.’” Basham said. “Then he asked me if I would think about writing one and they would take a look at it.”

While attending a prestigious playwriting conference at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in 2003, Basham began work on Wrinkles. She soon completed the work, and Zito added the show to the 2004-2005 season.

Basham will return to San Diego to accept the award at a ceremony on Jan. 30. For more information about the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle, visit www.sdcriticscircle.org.

Dan Kirsch, Diversionary’s executive director, is already courting Basham for a new play. He said Diversionary is also looking at several other original scripts to be produced as part of a new play series.

“We’re going to start First Look, which is a play-reading project,” Kirsch said. Diversionary is accepting original plays and plans to produce stage readings of at least two new shows this year. “We are getting some scripts from San Diego, but they are coming from all over the world. The best play we’ve read so far is from a South African playwright.”

The guidelines for submitting a play are available on Diversionary’s Web site, www.diversionary.org.

Diversionary’s current season celebrated 20 years of GLBT theAter in San Diego. For more information or a show schedule of their current production of Beautiful Thing, call the box office at (619) 220-0097.