How are Barrymore finalists chosen?

If you go to the theater, you may be sitting beside them. They could be there any night, at any of the 51 professional theater companies producing plays and musicals throughout metropolitan Philadelphia. Like you, they sit, they watch, and - like you - by the curtain call have formed an opinion. The difference: They then go home and fill out paperwork assigning points from 1 to 100.

How was the acting? The directing? What about the costumes? The sound and lighting? If this was a cast with several characters, did it work together as an ensemble? Their marching orders from the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia: Consider each production on its own merits. Comparing it to something they saw the week before, or maybe last night, is unacceptable.

They are the 66 judges of the Barrymore Awards, the region's professional-theater honors, which will be awarded Monday night for the past season's work in a region where homegrown theater has become a hot commodity. Never, until now, have there been so many professional stages, and the number keeps growing as small amateur companies turn pro, paying their actors, and become eligible for Barrymore Awards.

This year, the Barrymore judges favored the Wilma Theater's In the Next Room, or the vibrator play with 12 nominations, including best production of a play. The Wilma's staging of the offbeat play about the early history of vibrators was one of the first after the play ended its Broadway run last season.

The judges also gave 12 nominations to The Flea and the Professor, a world-premiere musical at the Arden, based on tales by Hans Christian Andersen. Among its nominations is best musical production.

Those shows were the most nominated among an estimable field of stage work: 147 shows in all in the 2010-2011 season. Because the judges vote by a point system, the top five point-getters (or, if it's close or a tie, the top six) become the nominees in each category. The highest-numbered of these in each category will be announced Monday night at the Walnut Street Theatre as the winner of a Barrymore medallion. A reception follows at the nearby Benjamin Franklin House.

The judges also ranked the Walnut's Miss Saigon and Delaware Theatre Company's dramatic version of Around the World in 80 Days high on their lists; the professional stage in Wilmington is a member of the Philadelphia Theatre Alliance, an umbrella group serving stage companies in the region and also the originator and organizer of the awards.