PROVIDENCE: Trinity Repertory Company announces the local and national honorees of the 2025 Pell Awards Gala. Emmy Award-winning comedian, writer, and actress Tina Fey and Tony Award-winning actress and singer and Emmy and Grammy Award nominee Kelli O’Hara will each receive the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. Mixed Magic Theatre co-founder and executive director Bernadet V. Pitts-Wiley will receive the Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. This year’s recipient of the Pell Award for Leadership in the Arts is Lorén M. Spears, the executive director of Tomaquag Museum, Rhode Island’s only Indigenous arts, culture, and history museum.
“Senator Claiborne Pell was a great champion for the American people,” The Laura H. Harris Artistic Director Curt Columbus said. “Now more than ever, we need leaders like Claiborne Pell. The honorees for this year’s Pell Awards Gala exemplify the spirit of our legendary senator, in their contributions to the arts and their communities.”
The 26th Pell Awards Gala will be held on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island at The Lindemann Performing Arts Center on Brown University’s campus. The event co-chairs are Sally Lapides and Joan Sorensen.
The event will begin at 6:00 pm with a VIP cocktail reception. All guests can arrive beginning at 7:00 pm and will enjoy a seated dinner and awards ceremony at 7:30 pm. Attendees will mingle with artists, business, political, and social leaders; savor food by Russell Morin Catering & Events; and experience unforgettable moments as the theater honors individuals committed to bettering the world through art, education, and activism.
Tickets, sponsorships, and event program tribute ads are on sale at trinityrep.com/pell or by phone at (401) 453- 9237. All proceeds from the Pell Awards Gala support Trinity Rep’s artistic, educational, and community engagement programs.
ABOUT THE PELL AWARDS
Established in 1997 to honor the legacy of U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI), The Pell Awards recognize excellence in artistry and advocacy, both regional and national. Throughout his life, Senator Pell worked to support the arts: He was the principal sponsor of landmark legislation that established the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities in 1965 and chaired the Senate Education and Arts subcommittee. He also took a lead role in eliminating barriers to higher education with his legislation creating the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, which Congress named “Pell Grants” in 1980.
Past recipients of the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts include Jane Alexander, Kate Burton, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Viola Davis, Olympia Dukakis, Laurie and Oskar Eustis, Adrian Hall, The Indigo Girls (Amy Ray and Emily Saliers), Richard and Sharon Jenkins, Jessica Lange, Mary McDonnell, Arthur Miller, Liza Minnelli, Toni Morrison, Robert Redford, Chita Rivera, Jason Robards, Maurice Sendak, Beverly Sills, Stephen Sondheim, and Octavia Spencer.
Past recipients of the Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts include John Benson, Howard BenTré, Dan Butterworth, Len Cabral, Charlene Carpenzano, John Chan, Bob Colonna, Robert Coover, Umberto “Bert” Crenca, Richard Cumming, Ruth Frisch Dealy, Bob Dilworth, Tony Estrella, Barnaby Evans, Richard Fleischner, Peter Geisser, Malcolm Grear, Michael Harper, Bunny Harvey, Dorothy Jungels & the Everett Dance Theatre, George Kent, Eugene Lee, David Macaulay, Salvatore Mancini, Marta V. Martínez, Dave McKenna, Barbara Meek, Denny Moers, Morris Nathanson, Timothy Philbrick, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Duke Robillard, Thomas Sgouros, Sr., Consuelo Sherba, Gretchen Dow Simpson, Maria Spacagna, Judith Lynn Stillman, Valerie Tutson, Chris Van Allsburg, Paula Vogel, Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop, William Warner, Rose Weaver, Steven Weinberg, and Toots Zynsky.
Past recipients of the Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts include Jeannine Chartier, Joseph A. Chazan M.D., Trudy Coxe, Mihailo “Misha” Djuric, Michael Gennaro, Roger Mandle, Senator Claiborne Pell, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, J.L. “Lynn” Singleton, Rosanne Somerson, Charles M. “Chuck” Royce, and George Wein.
ABOUT TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY
Rhode Island’s Tony Award-winning theater, Trinity Rep has created unparalleled professional theater for and with its community since its founding in 1963. Trinity Rep strives to facilitate human connection and has been a driving force behind the creativity that fuels and defines the region for more than 50 years.
Trinity Rep is committed to reinventing the public square and inspiring dialogue by creating emotionally stimulating live productions that range from classical to contemporary and innovative education programs for all ages and abilities. Its annual production of A Christmas Carol has brought families together for more than four decades and made memories for nearly two million audience members.
Trinity Rep’s 2024-25 Season runs through June 2025, and includes productions of POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B, A Christmas Carol, Someone Will Remember Us, La Tempestad – The Tempest, and Blues for an Alabama Sky. For more information, visit Trinity Rep’s website at www.trinityrep.com.
2025 Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts
Tina Fey
Tina Fey is an award-winning writer, actress, author, and producer. She is known for creating the iconic Emmy Award-winning comedy series “30 Rock.” As the series’ executive producer, head writer, and star ‘Liz Lemon,’ her creative work on the series earned her an Emmy, two Golden Globes, four SAG Awards, and a People’s Choice Award. Originally airing on NBC from October 2006 until January 2013, “30 Rock” is the winner of 16 Emmys, seven Golden Globes, 22 Guild Awards among SAG, WGA, DGA, and PGA, as well as Image, Peabody and AFI Awards. The series received a total of 103 Emmy nominations and 22 Primetime Emmy Award nominations over seven seasons on NBC.
Prior to creating “30 Rock,” Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member, and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment on “Saturday Night Live.” As an actress and writer on “Saturday Night Live,” Fey was awarded an Emmy in 2009 for Guest Appearance by an Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Sarah Palin, as well as two Writers Guild Awards. Fey also made Emmy history in 2016 when Fey and Amy Poehler became the first joint winners of Best Comedy Series Guest Actress for their “Saturday Night Live” co-hosting appearance.
In spring 2004, Fey wrote and co-starred in the iconic comedy film Mean Girls, for which Fey earned a Writers Guild Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Fey then starred opposite Amy Poehler in the 2008 comedy film Baby Mama for Universal Pictures. In 2010, Fey co-starred with Steve Carell in 20th Century Fox’s hit film, Date Night, and shortly thereafter was a featured voice in the Dreamworks animated film, Megamind.
In April 2011, Fey released her first book entitled Bossypants, which topped the New York Times best seller list and remained on the list for 25 consecutive weeks. Its audiobook also received a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Album. Bossypants was released in paperback in January 2012 and has sold over 5 million copies in the US thus far.
In 2015, Fey and her writing partner, Robert Carlock, co-executive produced and created the hit Netflix original comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” starring Ellie Kemper. The series was nominated in the Best Comedy category for the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, boasting four nominations for the talented cast, including a guest actress nod for Fey. After four successful seasons, the show wrapped the first ever comedy interactive special for Netflix, an exciting conclusion to the series.
In 2018, the Broadway adaptation of Mean Girls opened at the August Wilson Theater. Written by Fey, directed by Casey Nicholaw, and with music written by her husband Jeff Richmond, the show received 12 Tony Award nominations. In 2019, Fey appeared alongside John Slattery in an episode of Amazon’s anthology series, “Modern Love,” which was written and directed by Sharon Horgan. In 2020, Fey starred as a lead voice character, ’22,’ in Pixar’s Oscar and BAFTA winning animated feature film Soul written and directed by Pete Docter.
In television, Fey served as executive producer on “Girls5Eva,” which premiered in 2021. The third season debuted on Netflix on March 14, 2024. On the big screen, Fey serves as producer on Apple TV+’s Carrie & Me, the film adaptation of the novel Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story by Carol Burnett. Tara Miele will write and direct, while Jeff Richmond will executive produce along with Eric Gurian, Steven Rogers and Josh McLaughlin.
In 2023, Fey led the ensemble cast of the Disney film A Haunting in Venice, directed by Kenneth Branagh, based on the Agatha Christie novel “Hallowe’en Party.” Most recently, Fey reprised her role as ‘Ms. Norbury’ in Paramount’s Mean Girls musical film adaptation of the Tony nominated Broadway musical Mean Girls: The Musical. Fey also served as screenwriter and a producer alongside Lorne Michael’s Broadway Video, with music by Jeff Richmond. The film was released in theaters on January 12, 2024.
Fey recently toured the US with Amy Poehler for their sold-out Restless Leg comedy tour including 11 shows at New York’s iconic Beacon Theatre.
This upcoming spring, Fey can be seen in Netflix’s upcoming eight-episode comedy series “The Four Seasons,” based on the 1981 feature film of the same name. Universal Television will produce, and Fey will serve as star, writer, and executive producer under her Little Stranger banner. The series will premiere on Netflix on May 1, 2025.
2025 Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts
Kelli O’Hara
Kelli O’Hara has established herself as one of Broadway’s greatest leading ladies. The Tony Award winner, Emmy, SAG, and Grammy-nominated actress has appeared in 12 Broadway shows for which she has garnered eight Tony Award nominations.
She won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, along with Grammy, Drama League and Outer Critics nominations for her portrayal of Anna Leonowens in The King and I. O’Hara’s other Broadway credits include Kiss Me Kate, The Bridges of Madison County, Nice Work if You Can Get It, South Pacific, The Pajama Game, The Light in the Piazza, Sweet Smell of Success, Follies, Dracula, and Jekyll & Hyde.
O’Hara received an Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Katie Bonner in Topic’s hit web series, “The Accidental Wolf,” and can currently be seen on HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” which was nominated for a SAG award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series for Season 2. Additional film and television credits include Showtime’s “Master of Sex,” “13 Reasons Why,” “Blue Bloods,” “All My Children,” All the Bright Places, “Peter Pan Live!,” Sex & The City 2, Martin Scorsese’s The Key to Reserva, “The Good Fight,” “N3mbers,” and “Car Talk.”
In 2015, she made history as the first artist to make the crossover from Broadway to opera when she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Lehar’s The Merry Widow opposite Renee Fleming. In 2018, she returned as Despina in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. She was last seen at The Metropolitan Opera in the world premiere of Kevin Puts’, The Hours as Laura Brown, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Opera Recording.
O’Hara is a frequent performer on PBS’s live telecasts, The Kennedy Center Honors, and performs often alongside The New York Philharmonic and The New York Pops. Along with her two Grammy nominations, her solo albums, Always and Wonder in the World, are available on Ghostlight.
O’Hara recently completed a critically acclaimed limited Broadway engagement of the new musical Days of Wine and Roses, which also garnered rave reviews during its Off-Broadway run at The Atlantic Theatre Company last summer. She won the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical in addition to receiving Tony and Drama League Nominations for her role. Upcoming projects include Season 3 of “The Gilded Age.”
2025 Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts
Bernadet V. Pitts-Wiley
Bernadet V. Pitts-Wiley is co-founder and executive of Mixed Magic Theatre, an acclaimed non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization founded in Pawtucket, RI in 2000 with her husband, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley. For over 25 years, she has been a cornerstone of Rhode Island’s arts and culture world, using the theater’s outstanding legacy of bringing diverse stories to the stage with a mission to build more literate, arts-active communities. Under her leadership, Mixed Magic Theatre received The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities’ Tom Roberts Prize for Creative Achievement, which recognizes leadership, innovation, and scholarship. A lifelong champion of the arts, education, social justice, diversity and inclusion, and cultural collaborations, she is passionate about promoting the value of theater arts as a leverage to construct community on a local, national, and international level, creating opportunities for the next generation of artists.
Her ability to build community rooted in collaboration was exemplified by Mixed Magic Theatre’s partnership with MIT’s New Media Literacies Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, to investigate digital media and literacy education. This produced Mixed Magic Theatre’s landmark Moby Dick Project, which used theater and literature to address literacy and challenging social issues in creative ways. The outcome of this powerful collaboration led to “Moby Dick Then and Now: Reading in A Participatory Culture,” a book that MIT established as a national teaching tool, and ultimately led to the Pitts-Wileys’ presentations in Poland at the International Conrad/Melville Conference in 2007 and at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC in 2008.
A graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Pitts-Wiley is an accomplished actress, poet, and arts educator. Having also co-founded The Human I Theatre Ensemble in San Diego, The Artship Project and The Providence International Theatre Company in Rhode Island, her background has spanned a wide variety of theatrical endeavors including management, acting, writing, directing, and producing in theaters across the country. Some of her most notable performances have included For Colored Girls…, A Raisin in The Sun, Celebrations: An African Odyssey, Fences, and numerous poetry events and readings. An avid lover of poetry, she created the signature Poets On Fire!, The UnExpected Poetry Affair, POetWomen, and the National Poetry Month Series, which are all produced at Mixed Magic Theatre annually.
As a diversity, equity and inclusion professional, Pitts-Wiley has collaborated with non-profit organizations, government agencies, universities, and human services to create and implement community diversity initiatives. Over the course of a 10-year tenure at Johnson & Wales University, she was the director of the Multicultural Center, and assistant director and co-founder of its Office of Campus Diversity. There, she created and spearheaded the innovative Diversity and the Future 2000 Initiative to develop projects that further the actual practice of diversity in Rhode Island.
Bernadet V. Pitts-Wiley is the mother of two sons: Ricardo, a multi-talented lawyer in Washington, DC; and Jonathan, a theater artist, photographer, historian, and current artistic director of Mixed Magic Theatre. She is the very proud, grateful grandmother of four very creative and inspiring grandchildren.
2025 Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts
Lorén M. Spears
Lorén M. Spears, is an enrolled citizen of the Narragansett Indian Tribal Nation and the Executive Director of Tomaquag Museum. She has been an educator for over 25 years and served as an adjunct faculty at Brown University and at the University of Rhode Island. Spears earned a BS in elementary education from the University of Rhode Island and her MS in elementary education from the University of New England. She received a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from the University of Rhode Island in 2017 and a Doctor of Education, Honoris Causa from Roger Williams University in 2021.
Under Spears’ leadership, Tomaquag Museum received the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ National Medal presented by First Lady Michelle Obama in 2016. Through the museum, she shares her cultural knowledge and traditional arts learned from her family and community. Spears also empowers Indigenous youth and educates the public on Narragansett and other regional Native history, culture, the environment, and the arts. She founded and led Nuweetooun School at Tomaquag Museum from 2003-2010. She also founded the Tomaquag Museum’s Indigenous Empowerment Center to create educational, professional, and arts opportunities for the Native community. To ensure Indigenous representation, she serves on many boards including the RI 250 Commission, URI Native American Advisory Committee, RI Office of Diversity, Equity, and Opportunity, and the South County Tourism Council.
She has contributed to a variety of publications such as Dawnland Voices, An Anthology of Indigenous Writing of New England; Through Our Eyes: An Indigenous View of Mashapaug Pond; From Slaves to Soldiers: The 1st Rhode Island Regiment in the American Revolution; and Repair: Sustainable Design Futures. Spears co-edited a new edition of A Key into the Language of America by Roger Williams; and recently co-authored “As We Have Always Done: Decolonizing the Tomaquag Museum’s Collections Management Policy” published in the Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archive Professionals.
Spears has received numerous awards including the Association of Tribal Archives and Museums’ 2022 Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Leadership Award, Mashantucket Pequot Museum’s 2022 Three Sisters Community Meesumôk Neetop Award, YWCA 2019 Women of Achievement Award, Providence Chapter of Chums 2018 Women of Vision Award, the RI Council for the Humanities 2016 Tom Roberts Prize for Creative Achievement in the Humanities, New England Museum Association 2016 Excellence Award, International Woman’s Day 2010 Extraordinary Woman Award, The Indigenous People Organization 2006 Native Heritage Gathering Education Award, Urban League of RI 2006 Woman of Substance Award, National Native American Families Together 2005 Award, and the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s 2001 Recognition of Dedication to Tribal Youth.
Spears is a traditional artist. She does basket and finger-weaving, beadwork, and other traditional artforms. She is married to Robin Spears Jr., Narragansett artist, environmental police officer, and mason. She has three grown children, two daughters-in-laws (all cultural artists), and one grandchild. Everything she does is for her family, community, and the future generations.
