Two Texas Southern University theater legends who exemplify excellence and commitment to their craft are being recognized on April 13 when the first annual Dianne Jemison Pollard Award for Distinguished Achievement in Acting is given to Edwin Lee Gibson.

Best known for his work as Ebraheim, one of the cooks in the multi-award-winning FX series, The Bear, Gibson (TSU math major and theater minor) boasts a 42-year career with over 104 professional productions including Fetch Clay, Make Man for which he recently received a Best Lead Performance nomination from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.

The Award’s namesake, the late Dr. Dianne Jemison Pollard, dedicated 44 years to TSU including her distinguished time as the Dean of the Thomas F. Freeman Honors College and Professor of Theatre in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.

Pollard's son, Houston City Councilman Edward Pollard says the family was honored to learn of the award. "My mother would be proud. She dedicated her life to the students, the school and the arts and I think her legacy should be cherished and remembered to ensure that future generations continue to learn and understand what she brought to the university.”

“Dr. Pollard lived many lifetimes in that theatre program”, says Timothy Eric, TSU Adjunct Professor. "She instilled in all of us the high level of commitment, patience, and discipline it takes not only to have a career in the arts, but to perform in just one production,”

Given Pollard's stellar reputation, Eric says Gibson is the perfect choice to be the first award recipient. "Edwin's career is soaring high but its arc isn't steep. For over 30 years, he has been the same dedicated, committed artist that he was in school. Those same virtues of discipline and patience that were passed down to us from Dr. Pollard and others are exemplified in his achievements — and in the road he's traveled to get there.”

Gibson, a Houston native with proud roots in the South Park neighborhood says he’s deeply honored to be chosen for the award by a school he says helped set him up for success.

“When you have a small department like TSU, it meant you got to access the instructors in a way that the other programs might not enable. You would just walk in watch and learn,” says Gibson. “Dr. Pollard and the kind people at TSU are such a big part of me – nothing exists in a vacuum and no one does anything on their own. That way of working was instilled in me just by watching how they went about their work.”

Work for Gibson these days is a mix of stage and screen, which he describes as the same muscle but different flex. But regardless of whether he's on the stage or a TV set, he's interested in achieving the same thing.

“I like to find things that scare me,” says Gibson. “Right now I’m scaring myself more on screen because I don’t have the luxury of the next night, I don’t have the audience to dance with. But mostly I just love what acting asks of me and that is to find out more about myself and to breathe life into characters that I feel need me.”

Some interesting trivia for all The Bear fans out there, Gibson wasn’t going to try out for the role at first.
“I have this thing about tropes," says Gibson. "How brown skin men are portrayed and if it was just going to be that I wasn’t interested. But then I thought that’s not who I am as an artist, I’ll fight for the character.”

It seems like it was all meant to be as the show’s creator and co-showrunner Christopher Storer saw Gibson onstage in Chicago 5 years earlier and had always wanted to work with him. "So you never know,' says Gibson. "You just keep doing the work."

Coming back to TSU to accept the award at such a high point in his career, Gibson has some advice for the theater students. "There are two things that serve an actor. First, sit in a room alone and have an honest conversation with yourself about what you can do without if you’re going to take this career on. Secondly, define success for yourself on your own terms. If it's what you decide to do – you do it – if you go down in flames go down with the idea that you have of yourself.”

Ultimately for Gibson, the Pollard Award is impetus. “When I'm recognized or awarded for me that's just a license to work harder. It's a jettisoning. Coming back to receive this award means that OK, there's more to do.”