THE PELL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE ARTS
Friday, May 30, 2008 at Trinity Rep
2008 Pell Awards photo album >>
| | | The Trinity Rep Resident Acting Company - the last company of its kind in the nation- was honored with a National Pell Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts at the 2008 Pell Awards at Trinity Rep, a tribute to Senator Claiborne Pell and the arts. The fifteen current members of the award-winning resident acting company were honored alongside the many actors and actresses that have called Providence and Trinity Rep home over the past 45 years. RISD's Roger Mandle was awarded the Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts, and Visual Artist Peter Geisser and Violist Consuelo Sherba received Rhode Island Pell Awards for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts. Honorary Chairs for the event were Governor Donald L. Carcieri, Mayor David N. Cicilline and Senator and Mrs. Claiborne Pell. Proceeds from ticket sales benefit artistic programming at Trinity Rep. | | | 
Pictured, left to right clockwise: (Back row-standing) Angela Brazil, Stephen Thorne, William Damkoehler, Brian McEleney, Rachael Warren, Fred Sullivan, Jr., Janice Duclos, Anne Scurria (front row -seated) Stephen Berenson, Mauro Hantman, Phyllis Kay, Timothy Crowe, Barbara Meek, Joe Wilson, Jr., and Cynthia Strickland.
Photo: Wes Rollend, Gladworks
| | | | | | The twelfth annual creative black tie-event consisted of an awards ceremony in Trinity’s Chace Theater, followed by a festive party in a city-block sized tent in the center of Downcity. Organizers did away with the traditional sit-down dinner, and instead offered a more free flowing evening with food and mixed drinks served at a variety of restaurant-themed bars. | | | | | | Now in their second decade, the Pell Awards honor Senator Claiborne Pell and recognize artistic excellence in Rhode Island and on the national level. This season, a special National Pell Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts will be awarded to Trinity Rep's resident acting company. Since the 1960s, resident acting companies around the country have built a special relationship with their communities, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts -- established through Senator Pell's initiative. Achieving a higher level of artistry through years of collaboration, resident acting companies entertained and inspired audiences, enhanced education for all ages, encouraged economic development and civic pride, and nurtured larger arts communities. Forty-five years after it was founded by a group of Rhode Island citizens, Trinity Rep is the last large long-standing resident acting company left in the country. | | | | | | Currently the resident acting company has fifteen members: Stephen Berenson, Angela Brazil, Timothy Crowe, William Damkoehler, Janice Duclos, Mauro Hantman, Phyllis Kay, Brian McEleney, Barbara Meek, Anne Scurria, Cynthia Strickland, Fred Sullivan, Jr., Stephen Thorne, Rachael Warren and Joe Wilson, Jr. The current company has been with the theater between three and 39 years - some having appeared in over 100 productions. | | | | | | Columbus explained "The heart of this theater is the acting company. Their familiarity, chemistry, and theatrical shorthand make possible the kind of distinctive artistry originally envisioned by the founders of the American regional-theatre movement, our own Adrian Hall among them. Rhode Islanders should feel great pride in the fact that Providence's own acting company is the reason Trinity Rep is such a strong part of the American cultural landscape today." | | | | | |  Peter Geisser has been an active member of the Rhode Island arts and art education communities for most of his professional life. His training in painting, ceramics, mosaics and stained glass was done at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and he also holds a BS in Education and a Master of Fine Arts from Tufts University. A stained–glass artist, Geisser has created windows for private homes, public buildings and churches throughout New England, including both the Chapel of Hope and Cancer Center at RI Hospital, the chapel of the Hasbro Children’s Hospital and AS220. Geisser also is an active arts educator, teaching at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and for the Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Continuing Education; and the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. After thirty years, he has recently retired as the Art Director at the RI School for the Deaf, where he created a highly recognized Art & Art History Program. Geisser is President-elect of Special Needs Art Ed., National Art Education Association, and Past President of the Rhode Island Art Education Association. He serves as advisor to the Access Advisory Board of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; RISD Museum; the RI State Council on the Arts; the Governor’s Task Force on Literacy and the Arts; the RI Council on the Humanities; Very Special Arts RI; Perishable Theatre; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the National Gallery of Art. He has been honored by the Rhode Island Art Education Association, the City of Providence, National Gallery of Art, RI State Council on the Arts, and the RI Business Volunteers for the Arts. He appears in Marquis Who’s Who, Paul Norton’s Rhode Island Stained Glass, and Stephan Brigidi’s Remarkable People. In 1997, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the Rhode Island School of Design for his work as an artist, art educator and arts advocate. | | | | | |  Violist Consuelo Sherba has been a part of the Rhode Island musical scene since 1986, when she came to Providence as the violist of the Charleston String Quartet to participate in a joint residency with Brown University and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. An experienced educator, Sherba is a member of the applied music faculty at Brown University and also teaches at the RI Philharmonic Music School, where she coaches orchestra strings, chamber music, and heads the Creative Communities string program. Sherba is a founding member and artistic director of the performance ensemble Aurea, dedicated to exploring the connection between music and the spoken word. With Aurea, she has taken music and poetry programs to inner city schools in Rhode Island in projects that have demonstrated the important role arts education has on measurable academic achievement on students at risk. She has also performed with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, New Hampshire Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Charleston String Quartet, and was a guest violist with the Boston Chamber Music Society. She has performed at the Monadnock, Grand Teton, Aspen, and Colorado Music Festivals, was principal violist of the West Virginia Symphony, the Atlanta Ballet, and the Atlanta Chamber Orchestra. An outspoken advocate on behalf of local artists and the importance of arts education, Sherba was awarded last year’s Pawtucket Foundation Person of the Year Award alongside Patty Zacks for work with the RI Philharmonic Music School and the Pawtucket Housing Authority. | | | | | |  Nationally known in the field of education in the arts and humanities, Roger Mandle has been President of Rhode Island School of Design for the past fifteen years. After serving as the Associate Director of the Minneapolis Museum of Art, he was Associate Director and then Director of the Toledo Museum of Art 1974-1988. He was Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from 1988 to 1993. In addition, Mandle served as a member of the National Committee for Education Standards in the Arts, for whom he was a co-author of Education Goals 2000: Standards in the Arts. He was appointed by both President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush as a member of the National Council on the Arts, on which he served for eight years. He has been Vice Chair of the Board of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mandle was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Federation of Arts; Vice President of the American Association of Museums; a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, and on the Board of National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. He currently serves on the Board for the Alliance of Artists Communities, and on the Board of the Newport Restoration Society, of which he is Vice-chair. He was also chairman of the Rhode Island Independent Higher Education Association and a Vice Chair of the Providence Foundation. Mandle has been a Trustee of the Rhode Island Children’s Crusade, Providence WaterFire, and the Advisory Board of Perishable Theatre. He is also a member of the Board for the Silk Road Project and CEO’s for Cities. He is a member of the Program Committee of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council and Rhode Island Economic Development Council. He was also Vice-chair of the Advisory Board of the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization and Chair of the Board of RI Campus Compact. In 2006 he was Chair of the National Design Awards Jury. A cum laude graduate of Williams College, with an MA from New York University and a Ph.D. in Art History from Case Western University, Mandle is a published scholar and teacher on the subjects of aesthetics and Dutch art. Throughout his career, Senator Pell worked to support the arts and provide new opportunities for artists. He sponsored the landmark legislation that established the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities in 1965, and chaired the Senate Education and Arts subcommittee. He also served a four-year term on the board of Trinity Repertory Company. | | | | | | Previous Pell Award honorees include Jason Robards, Arthur Miller, Beverly Sills, Stephen Sondheim, Toni Morrison, Robert Redford, Maurice Sendak, Jane Alexander, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis and Chita Rivera. Since the inception of the Pell Awards in 1997, there have been thirty-two New England and Rhode Island winners, including Howard Ben Tre, Dorothy Jungels, Chris Van Allsburg, Paula Vogel, Eugene Lee, David MacCaulay, Rose Weaver, Thomas Sgouros, Dave McKenna, Maria Spacagna, William Warner, Brian Dennehy, Barbara Meek, Ruth Frisch Dealy, Gretchen Dow Simpson, Dan Butterworth, Virginia Lynch, Toots Zynsky, George Kent, Bob Colonna and Duke Robillard. | | | | | | Hi-resolution photos | | | PETER GEISSER:
http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/Geisser.jpg
CONSUELO SHERBA:
http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/Consuelo.jpg
ROGER MANDLE:
http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/RMphoto.jpg
photo credit: Rhode Island School of Design TRINITY REP ACTING COMPANY:
http://www.trinityrep.com/DownloadDocs/best%20company%2008.jpg
photo credit: Wes Rollend, Gladworks |
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