Leon Rothenberg wanted to share his Tony award accolades with those who helped shaped him as an artist early on, so he come back home to honor his roots and mentors.
State Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy and Altamont Mayor James Gaughan honored Rothenberg, an Altamont native and Guilderland High School grad, on Tuesday, July 30, before the village’s summer concert performance at Orsini Park. Tkaczyk and McCoy presented Rothenberg with proclamations honoring his Tony award for Best Sound Design of a Play for “The Nance.” The award was also proudly displayed at the ceremony.
At the ceremony Rothenberg pointed to how his interactions with teachers and faculty at Guilderland High School helped him achieve such an honor.
“I feel like it is incumbent upon me … to talk about how I got where I got to and draw a little bit of light on what I gained from this area,” Rothenberg said. “When I was in school … I had the pleasure of working with, learning from and collaborating with some pretty special teachers at Guilderland. Each of them contributed in fantastic ways to my own development.”
McCoy also stressed how much someone’s future is shaped by the school they attend, community they’re raised in and the encouragement from parents.
“Leon, for you putting Altamont on the stage and putting Albany County on the stage, it is just incredible,” McCoy said. “You look at a small journey, and it does start out at home.”
McCoy said Rothenberg showed that if “you stay determined and focused,” while enjoying what you do, a person can accomplish great things.
Fred Heitkamp, retired teacher and former theater director, said Rothenberg first was drawn to theater through sound mixing, so winning a Tony for sound design brought Rothenberg full-circle.
“He saw some things about it that he thought would be interesting if somebody could find a solution to them, and it is something that he has continued to work doing,” Heitkamp said.
Heitkamp has kept in touch with Rothenberg since he graduated from high school, along with other former students.
“I actually contacted him the night that he got the Tony and sent him a congratulatory message,” he said.
Heitkamp estimated he taught around 8,000 students over his 30 years in education, and there were some, like Rothenberg, who stood out.
“He was very cooperative … whatever he was given to do, he did, and he did it very willing,” Heitkamp said. “He was the kind of student that you kind of assume he is going to be successful.”
Jim Corigliano, former music theory teacher at Guilderland High School, also said he saw something special in Rothenberg.
“Leon was an unusual student in that not only was he gifted and intelligent but somewhat precocious. He had lots of confidence and he wasn’t afraid to take a chance,” Corigliano said. “If you are going to compose music you can’t be afraid to take chance, or you will never write anything.”
Corigliano said many students that tried to write music often would never get started because they were afraid of it not sounding good. Corigliano said Rothenberg has a “flare” for writing music, and he always had a passion for theater.
“Leon had a good musical ear, a great imagination, and he had listened over the years, so he had a good musical vocabulary to build on of classical composers mostly,” he said. “Leon wanted to write contemporary music from the get-go, and I sort of fought with him that music is a craft and you got to learn your craft. … I’m not so sure he liked that, but he understood that musical composition was a craft. By the time he headed off to college he was prepared to study that craft.”
Rothenberg studied music composition in college, and he said Corigliano was the person that led him down that path.
“(Corigliano) really encouraged me to figure out how to write music,” Rothenberg said. “It was through his tutelage that got me writing music and then got me applying and gave me a portfolio so that I had some to apply.”
Rothenberg went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in composition from Oberlin Conservatory and then earned a bachelor’s in computer science from Oberlin College. He later earned a master’s of fine arts from California Institute of the Arts.
He has served on the Theater faculty at CalArts and also spent the fall of 2009 teaching at Bennington College in Vermont.
Some of his recent credits include plays and musicals performed at the Arena Stage, Seattle Repertory Theater, New York Stage and Film, La Jolla Playhouse, New York City Center, The Theater at Madison Square Garden and on Broadway. He also designed sound for Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza and Cirque’s winter holiday show, “Wintuk,” performed in NYC.
Rothenberg said his advice to anyone interested in entering the entertainment industry or a creative field isn’t too different from the standard guidance someone might hear: “Do what you want to do and go at it full blast.”
He said pursuing your dream “won’t ever be easy,” but you have to go after what you love. A little bit of luck doesn’t hurt, too, he said.