Tony Award for educators won by a Georgia teacher who stresses self-empowerment and storytelling

The stage is pictured prior to the 78th Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8, 2025, at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — At this year’s Tony Awards, sound designer Justin Ellington and performer-producer Kandi Burruss have gotten nominations for the theater’s biggest prize. A man who helped both get there is also being highlighted.

Freddie Hendricks, a middle school theater teacher at Utopian Academy for the Arts in Ellenwood, Georgia, and who founded the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta, is getting the special Tony Award that honors educators.

“It feels really great to know that they’re succeeding on that level and that I had a little to do with it,” he told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement on Monday. “It’s just a beautiful thing.”