NEW YORK (AP) — The particular Tony Award that honors educators goes to a New York public highschool trainer who exhibits how theater expertise can apply to a profession within the arts — and likewise distant from it.
“My platform is career focused,” says Gary Edwin Robinson. “So, as I am working with my students, it’s always, ‘How is theater going to help develop you in whatever area you’re going into?’”
Robinson, head of the Theatre Arts Program at Boys and Ladies Excessive Faculty in Brooklyn, will obtain the 2025 Excellence in Theatre Training Award on June 8 on the Tony Awards in New York Metropolis.
“I love what I do, and I get up and I go to work every morning and I go to the theater. It’s a black box theater and the theater just happens to be in a school, but it’s theater to me. There’s no distinction,” he advised The Related Press forward of the announcement.
Robinson teaches 5 drama lessons a day, providing a mean of 95-100 college students a three-year sequence of 45-minute elements. “My thing is ‘Go explore and find yourself in this thing called theater,’” he says.
Yr one is instructing the foundations of theater arts and performing. “I encourage my students every time they come to class to step out the box, explore, try something new today.”
Yr two is extra text-based, as college students discover playwriting and do character evaluation. The third yr pulls all of it collectively on the college’s black field theater.
Even when a pupil is poised for a life in athletics, Robinson says theater expertise may help: Theater could make you a greater communicator and may even assist while you do business endorsements.
The annual Excellence in Theatre Training Award bestowed by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon College acknowledges U.S. educators who’ve “demonstrated exemplary impact on the lives of students and who embodies the highest standards of the profession.”
“Edwin’s dedication to empowering the next generation of artists, both on and off the stage, is both profound and inspiring,” mentioned Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian in an announcement.
“Carnegie Mellon University is thrilled to help recognize his impact in arts education and to celebrate his record of equipping students with the skills, confidence and community needed for lifelong success.”
Robinson graduated from Andrew Jackson Excessive Faculty in Queens, specializing in music and artwork. He performed the flute and was a second baritone within the college’s choir. Robinson went on to the Dance Theatre of Harlem after which to Howard College, the place he earned his bachelor’s in theater training. He earned an honorable point out within the training class on the 2023 Tonys.
He has leaned on the Arthur Miller Basis Fellows Program and Broadway Bridges Program to take his college students to Broadway exhibits. This season, they’ve seen “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Gypsy,” “A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical” and “John Proctor Is the Villain.”
“We don’t call them trips. I call them theater experiences,” says Robinson. “It’s not a trip and a day out. You’re exploring what you learned in class through your drama book and textbook. What do you see on the stage happening? What did you learn in class and how do you make those connections?”
After seeing a present, Robinson is usually requested by his college students when they’re going again, so eye-opening has the expertise been.
“Many of them walk around the whole day holding the Playbill. I said, ‘You can put it away.’ But it’s like this little Broadway treasure that they have in their hand. And that makes me proud because I know that it has had a major impact on them.”
The award features a $10,000 prize for the Theatre Arts Program and a pair of tickets to the Tony ceremony and gala. Robinson’s college students may also obtain a visiting grasp class taught by Carnegie Mellon drama professors.
A panel of judges comprised of the American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League, Carnegie Mellon and different leaders from the theater trade selects the winner, from candidates submitted by the general public.
A lot of Robinson’s college students have gone on to careers within the arts — one is on tour in “Moulin Rouge,” one other is a supervisor on the famed Apollo Theater and one other simply completed a TV present.
“The ones that are teaching theater, that’s the gift to me,” he says. “When you have these students that are holding positions in professional organizations in the theater, film, and television, that’s another award out there. It lets me know that I’ve done my job and I connected with students and it’s worked.”
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