Gary Krinke

Awards and Honors:

• Lifetime Achievement Award, Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival, 2002


• Director, Theatre Arts Department, Fullerton College


• Co-creator, Fullerton High School Theater Festival, 1981


• Co-creator, Artistic Director, Standing Room Only Summer Music Conservatory, 1980


• Creator, New York/Broadway study week, Fullerton College, 1980

Perhaps no other single individual has had as much visible impact upon Fullerton College’s Theatre Department as Gary Krinke. Krinke has directed more than 100 student productions since first coming to Fullerton College in 1979.

Krinke was part of the influx of young new teaching talent to join the Theatre Arts Department faculty in the years 1979 and 1980. Following a crucial retreat in fall, 1981, Krinke and fellow instructors Tom Blank, Todd Glen, and Bob Jensen implemented numerous new programs to attract serious theater students from all across the U.S. while also ensuring that every student had a thorough grounding in numerous disciplines in acting, directing, design and technical work.

Krinke’s specialty has always been directing, and he has directed more than 200 productions at Krinke had an incredible degree of freedom that included a lack of “censorship”– even when producing daring shows like Hair and Equus, which were his first two productions at Fullerton College. He also directed at outside theater companies, which often enabled him to invite current Fullerton College students to join him in the world of professional theater. One of his most large-scale productions was Fullerton College’s “85th Anniversary Celebration and Presidential Inauguration” in 1997, which featured a cast of 500 singers, dancers, and musicians.

Krinke has also directed productions outside of Fullerton College, including Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Performance Riverside, Lake Tahoe Music Festival, and as guest director for Theatre Parisien in Paris, France. His production of Metamorphoses at Stages Theatre was named one of the top 10 productions of 2008 by the Orange County Register newspaper, and he has been nominated for the California State Chancellors Award in the category of “Thinking Outside the Box.”

Among the many individuals who have inspired him along the way, Krinke cites wife Lydia; fellow Theatre Arts faculty Todd Glen, Robert Jensen, Terry Blackley, and Marilyn Magness, a former student who now serves as the worldwide director of Disney Entertainment.

The only important awards include successes evidenced by actors, designers, directors, and technicians working in community theaters, the film industry, professional theaters, and major entertainment avenues who were trained in our department.