In a lifetime devoted to enhancing students’ lives and education through the arts, retired UFT Vice President Frank Carucci has won many honors, but perhaps none as prestigious as the 2018 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater. Carucci accepted the Tony on June 10 at Radio City Music Hall as board president of Manhattan’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, alongside Artistic Director Mia Yoo. “Somebody out there thought that La MaMa deserved extra recognition, which of course is a wonderful validation of who we are and what we do,” said Carucci, a longtime English teacher who ran the theater program at Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton HS before becoming the coordinator and teacher of art and theater programs for the city’s alternative high schools. Carucci — a past recipient of the Charles Cogen Award, the UFT’s highest honor, plus the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the New York Public Library’s Brooke Russell Astor Award — introduced his students to La MaMa and brought the East Village institution to the schools, including the East River Academy on Rikers Island, Harvey Milk HS and more. His longtime friendship with Ellen Stewart, the founder of La MaMa, led to access to the theater for public school students for acting workshops, shows, poetry recitals and art exhibitions. La MaMa was part of the Off-Off Broadway movement of the 1960s and the place where many young actors, including Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Sam Shepard got their start. The theater mounts more than 70 productions a year that will benefit from the $25,000 grant that comes with the Tony. Yoo, following the example set by Stewart, her predecessor, said, “At La MaMa, we always recognize the importance of exposing children to the power and beauty of the arts.”