The 2025 Texas Medal of Arts Award (TMAA) Show takes place in Austin on February 26. Since 2001, the TMAA have celebrated Texas leaders and luminaries who have achieved excellence through their creative talents, as well as those whose generosity has opened doors to artistic opportunity for Texans of all ages.
As the signature fundraising event of the Texas Cultural Trust, the affair is a star-studded celebration that spotlights the power of the arts to not only improve children’s education, stimulate the economy, improve health and wellbeing, but also to keep people connected, engaged, inspired, and to preserve the unique and proud culture of Texas.
Past TMAA honorees from the Upper East Side of Texas include Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, ZZ Top, Steve Miller, James Surls, Miranda Lambert, Charley Pride, Glenna Goodacre, and Brandon Maxwell among others.
This year’s Texas Medal of Arts honorees include the multi-talented performer Sandy Duncan.
Duncan was born February 20, 1946 in New London, Texas, to gas-station owners Sylvia and Mancil Ray Duncan. She performed in her first dance recital at the age of five and they family moved to Tyler when she was in the third grade.
She was 12 years old when she did a local production of The King and I for $150 a week and she has continued performing ever since.
In 1970, Time magazine named Duncan one of the “most promising faces of tomorrow.”
Duncan’s long musical theatre career incluces Broadway starring roles in Chicago (as Roxie Hart), Canterbury Tales (Tony Award nomination), The Boyfriend (Tony Award nomination, Drama Desk & Outer Critics Circle Awards), Peter Pan (Tony nomination), My One and Only (with Tommy Tune & husband Don Correia). At N.Y. City Center she did No No Nanette, Music Man, Carousel, Life With Father, and Finian’s. Rainbow. Her off-Broadway shows include The Fourth Wall, Ceremony of Innocence (Theatre World Award), and Your Own Thing. In Los Angeles she did Vanities (LA Drama Critics nomination) and other select stage performances in The King and I (National Tour), Driving MIss Daisy, The Glass Menagerie, A Body of Water (Old Globe Theatre), Steel Magnolias, Free Fall (wrote and starred in at Berkshire Theatre Festival), 5,6,7,8 Dance! (Radio City), I Do, I Do! (with James Naughton), Love Letters (with Peter Fonda), and South Pacific (with Michael Nouri).
Television performances include Funny Face (Emmy nomination), Roots (Emmy nomination), The Hogan Family; specials Sandy in Disneyland and The Sandy Duncan Special; made for television movies My Boyfriend’s Back and Miracle on I-880; Pinocchio (with Danny Kaye), Law and Order, and The Muppet Show.
Duncan is also widely known as the commercial spokesperson for Nabisco’s Wheat Thins and the Sylvan Learning Center.
Her animation projects include My Little Pony, The Fox and the Hound, Rock-A-Doddle, Swan Lake, and I Am Curious.
She’s performed in the concert Together (with Don Correia and Guy Stroman) with major symphony orchestras across the country.
Duncan continues her commitments to AIDS and children’s issues. She is married to Don Correia and they live in Connecticut. They have two sons, Jeffrey and Michael.
To learn more about the Texas Medal of Arts Awards and Texas Cultural Trust, visit www.txculturaltrust.org.
