Trent Creswell, 2009 graduate of Chattanooga’s Center for Creative Arts, received the Outstanding Arts School Alumnus Award during the national conference in Lake Buena Vista, FL, of Arts Schools Network, the nation’s largest professional membership organization of specialized arts schools, on Friday. Created for the purpose of fostering artistic and academic achievement in talented young people, this honor is bestowed annually upon one former ASN member school student whose commitment to excellence is demonstrated through outstanding accomplishment in the areas of citizenship, arts, and academics.
Mr. Creswell is currently in his sophomore year at Sarah Lawrence College in New York studying literature, religion and art history. He plans to attend Oxford University in the fall of 2013 to further study literature.
During his senior year in Center for Creative Arts, Mr. Creswell won the Creative Non-Fiction Award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts for his autobiographical piece Auto-Bike-Ography; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cody Pinson, and was subsequently honored as a Presidential Scholar of the Arts nominee. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Edward Albee Fellowship, from the Edward Albee Foundation. During this month long artist’s residency in Montauk, he wrote the play A House Should Have the Look of Shelter, which was presented in Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre’s “F&*#ing Good Plays Festival” the following year.
His work has been performed at the Baryshnikov Center, The Neofuturists, Mary Archie, and The Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre. While a student at the Center for Creative Arts, Mr. Creswell wrote, directed and produced two original plays; The Package and The Death and Afterlife of Dr. Crash-Friendly. These provocative pieces were performed at both the Center for Creative Arts and The Chattanooga Theatre Centre; the proceeds from which benefitted local charities such as the Craniofacial Foundation of America.
Mr.Creswell also penned a new translation of Russian Playwright Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at Sarah Lawrence. He not only wrote and directed the work, he also played the role of Vanya. This spring, he is planning to direct and act in three short plays by Chekhov.
Mr. Creswell was a company member at Ballet Tennessee, and was a member of The Choo Choo Kids, the traveling musical theatre troupe at the Center for Creative Arts. Also, while at CCA he was a member of The National Honor Society and the co-editor of the school’s creative writing magazine. He acted in the film Ruthie, by Northwestern University professor Brian Cagle. Mr. Creswell is a member of the Dramatist Guild of America.
Arts Schools Network is a community of schools and institutions dedicated to education in and through the arts. Its mission is to provide the leadership necessary to inspire and maintain excellence in arts education by supporting and serving leaders of specialized arts schools, arts integration schools and new schools of the arts across the country. Arts Schools Network impacts more than 60,000 students: 1,486 arts focused schools; arts organizations and arts education leaders; 74,300 arts school administrators, teachers and counselors; and 743,000 alums of member schools—a number that grows by more than 48,000 each year. Visit www.artsschoolsnetwork.org to learn more.