M.F.A. Student Adam Cohen Celebrates Multiple Tony Nominations Adam Cohen, a performing arts management M.F.A. candidate from the Class of 2025, has been recognized as a co-producer on five Tony Award–nominated productions this season. His credits include Operation Mincemeat and Dead Outlaw, both up for Best Musical; John Proctor is the Villain, nominated for Best Play; and the revivals of Sunset Boulevard and Gypsy, each nominated for Best Musical Revival. Cohen’s journey into theater was anything but conventional. The son of two CUNY graduates, he spent more than two decades in corporate marketing before pivoting to a career in the performing arts. While completing his degree at Brooklyn College, he served as managing director of a regional theater, balancing academic work with real-world leadership in the field. “Being able to directly apply what I was learning in classes to real-world situations was huge—for reinforcing what I was being taught and for anticipating challenges on the job,” said Cohen. “The M.F.A. program provided hands-on learning, practical application, and the chance to collaborate with students and faculty from diverse backgrounds and levels of experience. It opened me up to new perspectives I might not have considered otherwise.” Cohen’s success exemplifies the transformative power of practice-based education and the wide-reaching impact of Brooklyn College’s M.F.A. in performing arts management. Michael Page Receives Two Tony Award Nominations Michael Page, adjunct assistant professor of theater and the program head for the Master of Fine Arts program in performing arts management, has received two Tony Award nominations for Best Musical as a co-producer for his work on the Broadway productions of Dead Outlaw and Operation Mincemeat. He was also a backer of this year’s Broadway revivals of Sunset Boulevard and The Last Five Years. Page joined the faculty at Brooklyn College in 2018 and is also the general manager of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where he leads the team responsible for many of the organization’s performance, operational, and revenue-generating business activities. In 2022 he was part of the team that reopened the newly renovated David Geffen Hall, which is home to the New York Philharmonic. Prior to Lincoln Center, he was the general manager of The Old Globe in San Diego, Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience, the Vineyard Theatre, and off-Broadway’s Barrow Street Theatre. Throughout his career, Page has managed and produced more than 100 pieces of live entertainment that have appeared on and off-Broadway, in regional theatres, and on international stages, and that have won and/or been nominated for Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Circle, Lucille Lortel, Audience Choice, and Drama League awards. Upcoming producing projects include the West End productions of Giant starring John Lithgow, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita directed by Jamie Lloyd at the London Palladium, and the Barbican Centre remount of Fiddler on the Roof, which won the 2025 Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Fiddler will then embark on a national tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland. More about this amazing career can be found here. Ben Stanton Nominated Again for Best Lighting Ben Stanton—an assistant professor in the Department of Theater and an acclaimed lighting designer—was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lighting of a Musical for Maybe Happy Ending. The musical was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The Tony Awards will be held on June 8 at Radio City Music Hall. Stanton is a five-time Tony Award nominee as well as an Obie, Lortel, IRNE, and Ovation Award winner. He has designed extensively on and off-Broadway, and regionally, with more than 350 design credits to his name. Stanton has collaborated with some of the American theater’s most celebrated directors, including Michael Arden, Trip Cullman, Sam Gold, Michael Greif, Doug Hughes, Anne Kauffman, Zhailon Levingston, Lisa Peterson, Leigh Silverman, and Susan Stroman. As a professor at Brooklyn College, he is passionate about building a broad and inclusive pedagogy that helps prepare students for the wide variety of careers available in lighting design for live performance.
