NEW YORK (AP) — The special Tony Award that honors educators is going to a New York public high school teacher who shows how theater skills can apply to a career in the arts — and also far away 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 Girls High School in Brooklyn, will receive the 2024 Excellence in Theatre Education Award on June 8 at the Tony Awards in New York City.
“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 told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement.
Robinson teaches five drama classes a day, offering an average of 95-100 students a three-year sequence of 45-minute parts. “My thing is ‘Go explore and find yourself in this thing called theater,’” he says.
Year one is teaching 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.”
Year two is more text-based, as students explore playwriting and do character analysis. The third year pulls it all together at the school’s black box theater.
Even if a student is poised for a life in athletics, Robinson says theater skills can help: Theater can make you a better communicator and can even help when you do commercial endorsements.
The annual Excellence in Theatre Education Award bestowed by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University recognizes U.S. educators who have “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,” said Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian in a statement.
“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 High School in Queens, focusing on music and art. He played the flute and was a second baritone in the school’s choir. Robinson went on to the Dance Theatre of Harlem and then to Howard University, where he earned his bachelor’s in theater education. He earned an honorable mention in the education category at the 2023 Tonys.
He has leaned on the Arthur Miller Foundation Fellows Program and Broadway Bridges Program to take his students to Broadway shows. 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 show, Robinson is often asked by his students when they are going back, so eye-opening has the experience 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 includes a $10,000 prize for the Theatre Arts Program and a pair of tickets to the Tony ceremony and gala. Robinson’s students will also receive a visiting master class taught by Carnegie Mellon drama professors.
A panel of judges comprised of the American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League, Carnegie Mellon and other leaders from the theater industry selects the winner, from candidates submitted by the public.
Many of Robinson’s students have gone on to careers in the arts — one is on tour in “Moulin Rouge,” another is a manager at the famed Apollo Theater and another just finished a TV show.
“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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