Mary-Mitchell Campbell Talks Arts Education, Advocacy and Her Isabelle Stevenson Tony Honor

Mary-Mitchell Campbell is set to receive the 2026 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for her humanitarian efforts. Campbell is a Grammy winner for Some Like It Hot, serves as music supervisor for Death Becomes Her and is the music consultant for Fallen Angels. In 2022, she assumed the role of music director for the acclaimed Encores! series at New York City Center.

Though Campbell’s career has kept her plate full, the Broadway veteran has also shown unwavering dedication to advocacy work within the theater community. She founded Arts Ignite (formerly ASTEP), which has delivered arts education to young people all over the world and supports organizations like Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Maestra and MUSE. Campbell chatted with The Broadway Show correspondent Perry Sook about her newest honor and the legacy of her humanitarian work.

“I think it started when I was in college,” Campbell says of her altruistism. “I took a class called social problems that really honestly changed my entire life because it was delving into the systemic inequities of our country and how income inequality came to be. And so I got very passionate about humanitarian work in the U.S. that then spanned into other countries.” 

Campbell retained her passion after graduating. “When I first moved to New York City, I showed up at Broadway Cares. I asked if I could start volunteering and I got really involved there. In 2003, I went through a relatively bad breakup and decided to go volunteer in India, teaching English and music to what were then called orphanages. When I came back, I was like, ‘I really want all of this to mean more than just putting on a show," she says.

This revelation helped steer her toward the founding of Arts Ignite: “I watched how art has the power to transform a community. It really brings people together [and can be used to] teach health education and life skills to kids who are in extreme situations and get them to imagine going to college. Imagination is not a muscle they are often asked to exercise, but we get to do that all the time.”

Speaking further on the reach and impact of Arts Ignite, Campbell says, “We've reached about 45,000 young people at Arts Ignite and that's been a major impact in the U.S., Africa and India primarily, but other countries as well. The thing that's the most powerful for me is getting to watch a lot of those kids go to college and graduate. Some of them have gone into the arts, which was never the goal. The goal was just to get them to college. But one of the ones that I was working with has now become a teacher of musical theater, and it's wild to me that we introduced it to her when she was 12.”

In addition to Arts Ignite, Campbell has a number of other charitable efforts on deck. “[There’s] MUSE, which is an organization that I've helped found with my other colleagues, which provides training and mentorship to musicians of color. There's Maestra that I'm deeply involved with that does similar work with women and non-binary musicians. I do a lot of work with cancer charities, and I'm doing something coming up for the First Amendment,” says Campbell. “I do get behind a lot of causes that I care about. I think that the passion just comes from being able to get involved with all these different groups.”

“I grew up watching the Tonys. It's like our Super Bowl,” Campbell says of the significance of her honor. “I will say, I think for me this Tony is so special because it's about advocacy and like I said, I really believe in the power of art. I really believe in arts education. I'm a big advocate of moving from STEM to STEAM in the classroom. I think it's incredibly humbling and rewarding to be part of this community to begin with. When I moved here from North Carolina, I never even thought that I would do a Broadway show. To be able to be part of this incredibly special group of people that make up the Broadway community for 20 years is an unbelievable gift, and this just feels like an incredible icing on the cake.”

Watch the full interview below: