Purchase, NY - Jeff Croiter, a 1993 alum of Purchase College's School of the Arts, was honored on Sunday with a lighting design Tony Award for "Peter and the Starcatcher," a play about the origins of Peter Pan.

“We are thrilled that Jeff has been awarded a Tony for his amazing work on Peter,” said Greg Taylor, director of the Conservatory of Theatre Arts in the School of the Arts at Purchase College. “We are also very proud that he’s a Purchase Design/Technology graduate. I am continually heartened by the sheer dedication and talent of our Conservatory’s students and faculty. And achievements such as Jeff’s remind us all that with the right skills and training—and a touch of brilliance—you can indeed realize your dreams, no matter how profound they may seem.”

Croiter has been the lighting designer for numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions in recent years. He is currently working on several projects, including a touring production of "Jekyll and Hyde."

More than 86 percent of Purchase College’s theatre design/technology graduates are working in their chosen profession. Many alumni are now members of U.S.A. local 829, I.A.T.S.E and A.E.A. and have received Tony, Emmy, Obie and Drama Desk Awards.

The Theatre Design/Technology B.F.A. Program within the School of the Arts' Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Purchase places major emphasis on studio/classroom training under the guidance of established working professionals. After a freshman year of general courses, students choose a specialty among a variety of concentrations: scenic design, costume design, lighting design, costume technology, stage management and technical direction/production management.

The lighting design concentration teaches students to develop conceptual and artistic ideas that will be used to guide the design of the lighting for a production.

During his acceptance speech, Croiter acknowledged the impact of his former professor at Purchase College, the late Bill Mintzer. Later, the Eastchester native said there was a moment when he considered other careers, but Mintzer persuaded him to stay at Purchase.

Mintzer also taught two of the other Tony Award nominees in this year's lighting design category: another Eastchester native, Kenneth Posner (nominated for "Other Desert Cities" and a Tony Award winner for 2007's "The Coast of Utopia"), also from Eastchester, and Brian MacDevitt (a five-time Tony winner who was nominated this year for Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman").

For more information about Purchase College, visit www.purchase.edu

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