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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 AmericaÂ鶹´«Ã½™s history. His role was as a writer, producer and director.

Â鶹´«Ã½ students Brooke Lyn Sicignano Â鶹´«Ã½™25, Ava Resco Â鶹´«Ã½™25, Adam Scott Â鶹´«Ã½™25, and Gannon Ripchik Â鶹´«Ã½™25 stand with Media, Communications, and Visual Arts professor Akil DuPont on stage
From L to R: Brooke Lyn Sicignano Â鶹´«Ã½™25, Ava Resco Â鶹´«Ã½™25, Akil DuPont, Adam Scott Â鶹´«Ã½™25, and Gannon Ripchik Â鶹´«Ã½™25.

Of his win, he said, Â鶹´«Ã½œThis 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!Â鶹´«Ã½

On an unrelated but synchronistic note, DupontÂ鶹´«Ã½™s Best Production Award was tied with the theatrical work, The Book or, Dear Reader, by Pace students Ava Resco Â鶹´«Ã½˜25 (Sands College), Gannon Ripchik Â鶹´«Ã½™25 (Sands College), Adam Scot Â鶹´«Ã½™25 (Sands College), Brooke Lyn Sicignano Â鶹´«Ã½™25 (Sands College), Anna Marie Tobin Â鶹´«Ã½˜25, Film and Screen Studies (Dyson), Directing (Sands College).