Kennedy Center Seeks Nominations for 2015 Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is seeking nominations for the 2015 Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards -a series of annual grants that recognize inspiring teachers in any field of education across the United States. Now entering their fifth year, the awards were created in honor of Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday in 2010. The program was initiated and funded through the generous support of arts philanthropists and friends of Mr. Sondheim, Freddie and Myrna Gershon.

Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim frequently attributes his success to the teachers in his life. The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards are presented each year on Sondheim's birthday-March 22-to outstanding teachers, kindergarten through college in all areas of education, living or deceased, who are nominated via the Kennedy Center website.

A total of 32 teachers from across the nation have been recognized over four years for their outstanding influence on students in a wide variety of disciplines, not just the arts. Recipients each receive a $10,000 prize and their stories, as told by the nominating student, are featured on a website dedicated to inspirational teachers.

Most people have at least one teacher who made an impact on their life. These inspirational people are not often recognized for the life changing role they have played. The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards seek to spotlight those teachers and to recognize them publicly for their significant role in society. The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher homepage features leaders and celebrities, including Warren Buffett, Dr. Jill Biden, J. J. Abrams, Bill Bradley and many others describing their favorite teachers and the impact good teachers make on communities and schools.

"Teachers define us," Stephen Sondheim has said. "In our early years, when we are still being formed, they often see in us more than we see in ourselves, more even than our families see and, as a result, help us to evolve into what we ultimately become. Good teachers are touchstones to paths of achieving more than we might have otherwise accomplished, in directions we might not have gone."

Winner of the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, Stephen Sondheim has received more Tonys than any other composer. Mr. Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Saturday Night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, The Frogs, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park With George (for which he received a Pulitzer Prize), Into the Woods, Assassins, Passion and Road Show, as well as lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy, and Do I Hear a Waltz? and additional lyrics for Candide. Revues of his work include Sondheim on Sondheim, Side by Side by Sondheim, Marry Me a Little, You're Gonna Love Tomorrow, and Putting It Together. For films and television, he composed the scores of Stavisky and Reds and wrote songs for Dick Tracy, for which he received an Academy Award, and Evening Primrose. He was also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1993. Mr. Sondheim is on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, having served as its president from 1973 to 1981.

To nominate a teacher for the award, people should visit the Kennedy Center website. The nomination deadline is December 14, 2014.

Nominators for posthumous recognition of a teacher must designate a 501(c)3 organization or fund within a K-12 school, school system, college, or university in the United States to receive the $10,000 award in the deceased teacher's name.

EDUCATION AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

The Kennedy Center retains its commitment as the nation's cultural center to educating and enlightening children and adults in Washington and around the country. The Center's national education programs include: Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child, which works with 14 municipalities and their school districts around the country to develop a long-range strategic plan for arts education; ARTSEDGE, a website that offers standards-based materials for use in and out of the classroom, Partners in Education, which forges relationships between an arts organization and its neighboring school systems to build effective arts education programs for teachers and teaching artists; Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network works with 33 state organizations on arts education policy issues; Explore the Arts, which provide insight into the cultural and historical context of the works presented on stage and sparks dialogue between audiences and the artists who have created the performances through participatory workshops, demonstrations, panels, master classes, and open rehearsals; and the Kennedy Center Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards, which acknowledge teachers of grades K-12 whose efforts have made a significant impact on their students.

In and around DC, the Kennedy Center's programs include Changing Education Through the Arts, a program that works with 15 schools in the area to affect long-term change in school culture through professional learning in arts integration; Professional Development Opportunities for Teachers, which trains Washington-area educators to teach the arts or other subject areas through the arts; and Washington, D.C. Partnership Schools, where the Center provides resources and teaching artist residencies to 20 elementary, junior, and senior high schools in Washington, D.C. The Center also mounts more than 100 events and performances of theater, music, dance, and opera throughout the season for more than 100,000 local school-aged children.

In addition, the Center offers multiple skill development programs for young artists and professionals both locally and nationally, including the National Symphony Orchestra's Youth Fellowship Program, Summer Music Institute, and High School Competition; Washington National Opera's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, Opera Institute, and Kids Create Opera Partnership; the biennial New Visions/ New Voices forum for development of new plays for young people; Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell; Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead; VSA's Playwright Discovery Program, Young Soloists, and Visual Arts Programs; arts administration internships; and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival which impacts hundreds of thousands of college-aged theater students across the country and marks its 47th anniversary in 2015.

For more information about the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards, visit kennedy-center.org/sondheimteacherawards or www.facebook.com/TeachersChangeLives.