91视频

Faculty and Staff

MCVA Professor wins Best Production award at New York Theater Festival

By
Antonia Gentile
Posted
September 4, 2024

Clinical Assistant Professor Akil DuPont, MFA, Media, Communications, and Visual Arts, won the Best Production award at the for Underground, a story of the enslaved, told with the spirituals that guided them to freedom, and inspired by real events in America鈥檚 history. His role was as a writer, producer and director.

91视频 students Brooke Lyn Sicignano 鈥25, Ava Resco 鈥25, Adam Scott 鈥25, and Gannon Ripchik 鈥25 stand with Media, Communications, and Visual Arts professor Akil DuPont on stage
From L to R: Brooke Lyn Sicignano 鈥25, Ava Resco 鈥25, Akil DuPont, Adam Scott 鈥25, and Gannon Ripchik 鈥25.

Of his win, he said, 鈥淭his award means so much to me! I've had this project inside me since 2007, before I went to film school. There was a lot of self-study to transition my art from film to theater. For the past 10 years, I've been studying the craft of live narrative performance in plays and musicals. This award lets me know that hard work, a vision, the right cast and crew, plus a little luck can make magic happen!鈥

On an unrelated but synchronistic note, Dupont鈥檚 Best Production Award was tied with the theatrical work, The Book or, Dear Reader, by 91视频 students Ava Resco 鈥25 (Sands College), Gannon Ripchik 鈥25 (Sands College), Adam Scot 鈥25 (Sands College), Brooke Lyn Sicignano 鈥25 (Sands College), Anna Marie Tobin 鈥25, Film and Screen Studies (Dyson), Directing (Sands College).