Walking the gray carpet for the Alberts

To ward off the guilty pleasures of watching the Oscars, the local "Albert" Awards are a guaranteed inoculation, held an hour before the annual Hollywood love-in, in the wood-and-white-bricked great room of the cozy and charming Gold Hill Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in the state of Nevada.

Put on by the Gold Hill Theater Troupe, the Alberts celebrate the actors, writers and directors for the seven plays the group put on for the year 2004. Handmade plaques will be given out in categories like "Best Foreign Accent," "Emergency Fill-in" and the coveted "Best Character Actor: Drunk."

Bill Fain, owner of the Gold Hill as well as producer and director of the ceremony, said he hopes about 100 people will attend.

A gray carpet will substitute for the traditional red, but the spirit of the event promises to be something more genuine than anything Hollywood could put in the can.

"We're all volunteers," he said. "All amateur actors, directors, writers, etc."

Started in August 2001, the first play the troupe performed was a mining tragedy about the Yellow Jacket Fire of 1869.

"Unfortunately that hit right on top of 9/11," remembered Fain. "So we wrote a comedy quickly after that to try and get people laughing again."

Since then, the group has performed some 18 plays, with two currently in rehearsal: "The Rose of Sharon" and "Vengeance and Vendetta on the Comstock."

"We try to keep a local flavor to the plays," he said.

Major awards will be given for overall best play, overall best director, best actor (male and female) and best supporting actor (male and female).

Special guest in attendance will be Maitland Stanley, whose father, George Maitland Stanley, designed the original Academy Awards Oscar.

The Albert Awards feature a full bar, a buffet and lots of fancy appetizers.

Dress attire is suggested, with the most dapper, promises Fain, winning free drinks.

After the Alberts, the wide-screen TVs will come out for the 77th annual Oscar celebration.

As Michele Reynolds, Albert nominee for Best Actor for the play "Yellow Jacket Margaritas" agrees, "It's an honor just being nominated."

Albert Awards

Where: Gold Hill Hotel

When: 4-5 p.m. Sunday. Oscars begin at 6 p.m.; ends when it is over

Dress: Proper attire requested

Reservations required: Call 847-0111

Admission: $20

"It's an honor just being nominated."

- Michele Reynolds, Albert nominee for Best Actor for the play "Yellow Jacket

Margaritas"