Votes for change…. and an awards ceremony that rings them in, too….

He carried on, “We thought it would unravel, that the whites who told pollsters they would vote for a black man were really lying and would reveal their true colors in the private sanctity of a voting booth. Even Mike the Optimist turned green and silent for a little while. And then, a little after 9PM, the networks casually called Ohio for Obama, and we knew he had won. (He had, or would, win every state Kerry had won in 2004, so he only needed one big Bush state — aka Ohio — and from there it was a pure victory lap.) At 11PM ET, as polls closed on the West Coast, the election was called for ‘President Elect Obama.’ Charles Gibson, the news reader on ABC, even got a little choked up as he said it. Our first black President. (Actually, as someone surmised, the world’s first black president of a non-black-majority country). At that moment, it was like New Year’s Eve. Suddenly out on 16th Street, and as far over as Union Square, you could hear cars honking and people yelling for joy, yelling in relief. We all hugged and kissed each other and even cried a bit. It was like the night Ragtime won the Tony. (What’s that you say?) A better America is coming, and hopefully, better for our friends and allies as well. God Bless America, to quote Irving Berlin! Can’t wait to see you next week, and in a better America than the one you last visited.”

In one of the biggest Tony Award upsets of the last decade, of course, Ragtime famously lost the 1999 Tony for Best Musical to The Lion King, so those tears of joy for President Elect Obama’s victory were all the sweeter. But Broadway - which is as Blue a state as any on the map - needs this vote for change as much as the world does, and Broadway friends were fearing widespread decimation for the current season if the result had gone the other way. So I’m looking forward to seeing a different, re-energised America as I head off there again on Friday.

It’s a long way from the momentous American elections to the annual Empty Space… Peter Brook Awards, the winners for which were announced yesterday at the National Theatre Studio, but if the flap of a butterfly’s wings can create tiny changes in the atmosphere that can affect the path or occurrence of a tornado, these awards are in their utterly unique way a symbol for something different in the ecology of British theatre, too. And, to push the metaphor, many is the butterfly that has emerged from its chrysalis here to create a later tornado, as witness the Gate Theatre, a one-time winner under Stephen Daldry, who tomorrow week sees his West End hit production of Billy Elliot transfer to Broadway (and is the reason I’ll be back there next week). They are the only annual awards that are awarded specifically to smaller studio theatre venues, recognising a body of work and achievement in them, that is often accomplished with little or no public funding, with nominations for venues from London and the rest of the country.

I should declare an interest here, as I’m one of the judging panel for them, and it’s one of my proudest jobs. I sometimes don’t feel that I get to as many of the studio spaces that come under our judging microscope as I’d like to (there are only so many nights in each week, and I fill every one of them as it is), but fortunately my fellow judges - the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, the Guardian’s Lyn Gardner, the Times’ Sam Marlowe and the Standard’s Fiona Mountford - more than compensate.

It’s an area of theatrical endeavour I’m always delighted to champion; and it was a particular pleasure yesterday that we were able to give the award yesterday for Up-and-Coming Theatre to the Union Theatre, which I visit on a daily basis - as I cited in my nomination speech, “Thanks to Ian and Andy, it also serves the best all-day lattes and bagels in town, from 7.30 in the morning to curtain up in the evening.” It is just around the corner from the office I rent, so I pick up my coffee there at least once, and often twice or three times, each day.

And the Awards ceremony itself is arguably the most joyous and inclusive of all the annual ceremonies, with the West End represented yesterday by the appearance of Nica Burns and Richard Pulford — SOLT’s current President and Chief Executive, respectively - as well as veteran producer Thelma Holt, who is one of the professional judges for two extra financial awards that are not judged by the critical panel, the Peter Brook/Equity Ensemble Award and the Mark Marvin Rent Subsidy Award. But what is fantastic is the fact — as fellow judge Fiona Mountford remarked - that most of those who gather here are typically excluded from attending the rest of the year’s annual ceremonies, so it becomes a special party for them to have their often unheralded (and, it goes without saying, poorly paid) work actually recognised.

It’s also, of course, all thanks to the tireless efforts of the Award’s founder and chief financer Blanche Marvin, who first set them up 19 years ago, that we’re there at all. I’ve already pointed out here on Monday that it’s been fantastic to have her back on her feet after her hip replacement surgery in the summer, and yesterday - resplendent in blue - she was the queen of her own ball, and hosted a lovely lunch for the judging panel at the Young Vic afterwards.

Most of all, though, I’m relieved not to have missed it - I actually got the day wrong, and turned up a day early for them on Monday, much to the consternation of the NT Studio staff - and myself! But rather a day early than a day late!