Arthur Miller Foundation Honors Goes Virtual; Sets Line-Up Including Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Members

The annual Arthur Miller Foundation Honors celebrating the power of public-school arts education will be hosted by Hamilton Original Broadway cast member and AMF Master Artist Council member, Sasha Hutchings, who is co-producing alongside Foundation Executive Director, Jaime Hastings. 

Kate Capshaw & Steven Spielberg have signed on as event Co-Chairs alongside Rebecca Miller, Sandi Farkas, Janine & Michael Smith. Presented by Broadway.com and directed by Paul Wontorek, this year’s third annual gala celebration is set to stream virtually on November 16, 2020.


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This year, the foundation will honor Tony Award nominee Dominique Morisseau with the Arthur Miller Foundation Legacy Award. The Foundation will also recognize exceptional NYC public school theater teacher Lisanne Shaffer with the Arthur Miller Foundation Excellence in Arts Education Award.

The celebration will raise funds for the Foundation’s theater education programs, featuring notable talent from film, television, and Broadway.

This year’s virtual gala will include performances by several cast members of the Broadway cultural phenomenon, Hamilton alongside their spouses and friends. Hamilton Original Broadway Cast member and Tony and Grammy Award Winner Leslie Odom, Jr. will be joined by fellow Broadway star and wife Nicolette Robinson (Broadway: Waitress; Showtime: The Affair). 

Tony Award Nominee and Hamilton Original Broadway Cast member Phillipa Soo will perform with fellow Broadway star and husband Steven Pasquale (The Bridges of Madison County Original Broadway Cast; Drama Desk and Drama League Nominee). Javier Muñoz (Hamilton, In the Heights) will be featured alongside friend and castmate Mandy Gonzalez (In the Heights Original Broadway Cast) starring in the current Broadway cast of Hamilton as Angelica Schuyler. 


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The evening will include a special appearance by Chiké Okonkwo (BET: Being Mary Jane; Upcoming NBC: La Brea) and performances by New York City public school students impacted by the program, to honor their theater teacher. Additional performers and appearances to be announced at a later date.

About the Arthur Miller Foundation

The Arthur Miller Foundation believes that arts education should be a right, not a privilege. To honor the legacy of the great American playwright, Arthur Miller, and his own public school education, the Arthur Miller Foundation (AMF) is a non-profit organization that provides greater access and equity to quality theater education for public school students by supporting theater teachers.


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AMF has a robust partnership with the NYC Department of Education Office of Arts & Special Projects (Director of Theater, Peter Avery) to support in-school theater education, by providing theater teachers with the resources they need to build, grow and sustain quality theater programs. Additionally, AMF has a scholarship program in partnership with the Graduate Program in Educational Theatre at The City College of New York, which aims to diversify and increase the number of theater teachers in public schools.

AMF feels that this is a particularly crucial time to be part of the public arts education movement and is focusing on social justice initiatives that give a creative voice to Black and Brown students who make up the majority of the NYC DOE student population. In this time of political unrest, theater seems to be perhaps the most important subject to teach in school, with its emphasis on empathy, inclusion, and empowering students’ voices. As of now, only about 200 out of 1,800 NYC public schools currently have a theater teacher.


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The Arthur Miller Foundation believes that if arts education assumes its rightful place in the NYC public school curriculum, we will foster generations of imaginative, collaborative, empathetic graduates, enhancing the evolving world of theater and all other fields of human endeavor.

The Arthur Miller Foundation Honors is AMF's largest benefit event of the year that raises the funds necessary to execute their programs. 

For more information on the Arthur Miller Foundation, please visit:

https://arthurmillerfoundation.org/

For Virtual Arthur Miller Foundation Honors information, please visit:

https://amfhonors.arthurmillerfoundation.org

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