OU alumnus Dale Shields has been nominated for the Excellence in Theatre Education Award, which stems from a partnership between the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University
The 2015 Tony Awards will feature a new award, and it might just go to an Ohio University alumnus.
Dale Ricardo Shields, an actor, director, archivist and educator, is a nominee for the inaugural Excellence in Theatre Education Award, which honors a teacher who uses the power of the arts to transform lives, according to the Tony Awards’ website.
The award comes from a partnership between the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University and was nominated-based through self-nomination, student nomination or general public nomination.
“It’s an honor. A complete honor,” Shields said. “Nobody has to do anything for you anywhere, so I mean, thank God the student or students that nominated me did and the people who wrote in for me did. … I lived in New York for 22 years. I’d love to go back for any reason, but this is a better reason to go back.”
A Cleveland-native, Shields received his MFA for directing and management in 1995 and his BFA in general theater in 1975. He is currently a visiting professor of black studies at Randolph-Macon College is also a guest director for The Black Arts Festival at the College of Wooster. Shields also runs the Cleveland division of Project1Voice, a national organization that aims to promote and strengthen African American theater and playwrights.
The Excellence in Theatre Education Award includes a $10,000 cash prize for the teacher’s school and tickets to the 2015 Tony Awards ceremony and gala. Finalists will receive $1,000.
Shields said he has known about his nomination since March but kept quiet for a month until he heard of another nominee. He said he doesn’t know anything about the award except that he was nominated and has personally only heard of one other person getting a nomination.
Whether he is teaching K-12 or college students, Shields’ methods are the same.
“I treat all of my students as if they’re professional actors,” he said. “That’s certainly the way I was taught at OU and my high school. I look to build them up, help support that backbone that I hope is there.”
Shields praised the programs at OU for preparing him for the professional and academic sides of the theater business, which he said has kept him working.
“It keeps me fresh on both sides,” he said. “Teaching can serve to remind you of those fundamentals, those foundations. Then going out into the professional world helps replant new seeds of knowledge for what’s going on now. One kind of helps the other. … It also helps me to teach from more than just a book. So if I say something to (his students), they know it didn’t happen 10 years ago. It happened now.”
Shields returned to Athens three years ago to direct the Ohio Valley Summer Theater’s production of Ragtime.
Marlo Tinkham, managing director of OVST, said Ragtime was one of the troupe’s most successful shows to date, which she attributed in part due to Shields’ direction.
“Everyone still talks about him,” she said. “ ‘Ragtime for life’ is a saying. … He really put the pressure on them to do good work, hard work together. From what I’ve seen of his work with young people all over the state and in different states, it’s a similar reaction I saw with the cast of Ragtime — they consider themselves a family. It’s what we like to see at OVST.”
The winner will receive the award at the 2015 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall and be acknowledged on the CBS telecast, which begins at 8 p.m. on June 7.
@buzzlightmeryl
mg986611@ohio.edu
