Art Cole Award

2021 Honoree

Dennis Gilmore (Indio, California) found his passion for theatre at the Athens Little Theatre in Texas. He became the theatre’s first Executive Director in 1989, and helped to grow the organization into what would become the Henderson County Performing Arts Center. While working full-time for the theatre and teaching technical theatre at Trinity Valley Community College, Dennis completed his MA in theatre with an emphasis in directing. He became active with the Texas Nonprofit Theatres, holding various board positions, and helping to create the annual TNT Youth Conference in 1996, and the TNT POPS! New Play Project in 2009. On the national level, Dennis served AACT on myriad committees, including four years as Vice President of Education, along with terms as California State Contact and Region VII Rep. Dennis received both local and national awards for his commitment to theatre, culmination in joining the ranks of the AACT Fellows in 2011. Dennis was known as someone who was a reliable resource and an excellent listener. He possessed a wicked sense of humor and a knack for helping others thrive. The theatre community lost a great friend and advocate with Dennis’ recent passing

Previous Recipients

2020 Kathy Pingel (North Port, Florida)
2019 Tim Jebsen (Midland, TX)
2018 Kay Armstrong (Dallas, TX)
2017 Julie Crawford (Fort Worth, Texas)
         Linda M. Lee (Fort Worth, Texas)
2016 Ginger Heath (Monroe, NC)
2014 Murray Chase (Venice, FL)
2014 Norman Small (Winter Haven, FL)
2013 Mary Britt* (Ocala, FL)
2012  Bill Muchow (Minneapolis, MN)
2011  Jim Sohre (Army Europe Command Entertainment
          Sherman C. Ward* (Alexandria Bay, NY)
2010  Tom Cowley (Ponca City, OK)
2009  Frank Peot (Sun Prairie, WI)
2008  Joanne Berry (Bay City, MI)
          Stephen Peithman (Davis, CA
2005  Jack Phillips (Downers Grove, IL)
2004  John Viars (Des Moines, IA)

2003  Shirley Harbin* (Detroit, MI)
2002  Twink Lynch* (Topeka, KS)
2001  Rod McCullough (Lancaster, PA)
2000  Rusty Clauss (Alexandria, VA)
1999  Bea Miller* (Memphis, TN)
1998  L. Ross Rowland* (Muncie, IN)
1996  Betty Tomlinson* (Spokane, WA)
1995  Enid Holm* (Odessa, TX)
1993  Norman McPhee (Racine, WI)
1994  Jim Carver (Kalamazoo, MI)
1992  Harv Thompson (Madison, WI)
1991  Sherwood Lohrey (Memphis, TN)
1989  Mort Clark* (North White Plains, NY)
1988  Sydney Spayde* (Iowa City, IA)
          John Wray Young* (Shreveport, LA)
1987   Art Cole* (Midland, TX)

          * Deceased

Art Cole

This award is named in honor of Art Cole, who founded the Midland Community Theater in 1946. He served as president of the Southwest Theater Conference, chairman of the Theater Panel for Gov. John Connally’s Texas Conference on the Arts, and vice president of the National Theater Conference. He was one of the small band of community theatre directors and visionaries to meet in Chicago in 1958, under the aegis of the American Educational Theatre Association (which latter became the American Theatre Association), to found the American Community Theatre Association as a provisional program of AETA.  ACTA became a full-fledged division of AETA in 1963, and Art served as President from 1968-70.

He organized the first national community theatre festival and was elected to the Governing Council of the International Amateur Theater Association. He was the first recipient of the American Community Theater Association’s David Bryant Award and was named best director at the International Drama Festival in Dundalk, Ireland, with the production of Butterflies are Free.  He also was an AACT Fellow, and chairman of the Theater Advisory Panel to the Texas Commission on the Arts and president of the International Amateur Theater Association. He died in 2013 at the age of 92.