Kenan Thompson,<\/a> who is a household star on \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve always had a passion for theater. I\u2019m an actor myself and when I got into teaching years and years and years and years ago, it became my passion,” he says.<\/p>\n
Ellington, who has earned his third Tony nomination for \u201cJoe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone,\u201d credits Hendricks as \u201cthe first person to show me the importance of storytelling in theater.\u201d Ellington watched as shy kids who started quiet at the beginning of Hendricks’ class were by the end the featured singer or performer.<\/p>\n
Hendricks graduated from Lincoln Memorial University in 1976, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication arts. He created \u201cSoweto, Soweto, Soweto: A Township is Calling!\u201d and has also taught in Europe and South Africa.<\/p>\n
He is artistic director, writer and teacher for the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta, which is comprised of students ranging from 11-20. At Utopian, Hendricks trains students in a \u201crigorous, ensemble-based program of acting, movement and storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of kids these days, they don\u2019t love themselves,\u201d he says. \u201cThey don\u2019t know who they are, for one thing. And I just kind of start with that and then go with loving themselves for who they are and letting them know up front, \u2018In here, this is a safe space. You\u2019re loved in here. You\u2019re accepted in here. This is your home.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks is known for encouraging his students to come up with topics they care about \u2014 poverty, gun violence, teen pregnancy, apartheid or AIDS \u2014 and building performances around their ideas from their perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat just empowered these kids so much,\u201d says Ellington. \u201cNot only empowered them from an internal place of owning who you are, but empowering them as storytellers and showing the importance of storytellers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The annual Excellence in Theatre Education Award bestowed by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University recognizes U.S. educators who have \u201cdemonstrated exemplary impact on the lives of students and who embodies the highest standards of the profession.\u201d<\/p>\n
The award includes a $10,000 prize for Utopian Academy and a pair of tickets to the June 7 Tony ceremony and gala in New York City. Hendricks’ students will also receive a visiting master class taught by Carnegie Mellon drama professors. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Hendricks imparts the importance of theater skills \u2014 like collaborating, listening, interpreting, storytelling, checking your ego, taking criticism \u2014 even if his pupils go on to careers outside the arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to let them know that life is great out there and the key to success is to never stop the pursuit of it. Whatever you want, keep going. It\u2019s not going to happen tomorrow. It\u2019s not going to happen next year. Or if it does, you may lose it, but it will come again if you continue to pursue whatever it is that you desire.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
More on the Tony Awards: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tony-awards<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nCopyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsls.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 At this year’s Tony Awards, sound designer Justin Ellington and performer-producer Kandi Burruss have gotten nominations to theater’s biggest prize. A man who helped both get there is also being highlighted. Freddie Hendricks, a middle school theater teacher at Utopian Academy for the Arts in Ellenwood, Georgia, and who founded the Youth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2411576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21866,21741,471741,471742,338451,352939,21818,393415,413757],"class_list":["post-2411575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-education","tag-entertainment","tag-freddie-hendricks","tag-justin-ellington","tag-kandi-burruss","tag-kenan-thompson","tag-lifestyle","tag-saycon-sengbloh","tag-tony-award"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Tony-Award-for-educators-won-by-a-Georgia-teacher-who.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2411577,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411575\/revisions\/2411577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2411576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}