Orange Blossom Award: The Educator Who Rebuilt the Room While Standing In It

Jose Avilés with staff at American Stage during the 2022 production of American Idiot. Photo Credit: Avery Anderson

by Avery Anderson

A quick reminder of what the Orange Blossom Awards are — in a city full of shiny galas and people congratulating themselves for “raising awareness,” these awards are for the other people.
The ones doing the unglamorous, quietly revolutionary work that actually shifts the ground under our arts community.

Sometimes that’s a volunteer.
Sometimes it’s a backstage legend.
And sometimes — like today — it’s the person who walks into a room mid-shift and somehow builds the future anyway.

Enter Jose Avilés.

Jose Avilés during his tenure as Director of Education at American Stage. Avilés reshaped the company’s post-pandemic education program before moving to EPACENTER in East Palo Alto, California. Photo credit: American Stage

When Jose arrived in St. Pete in April 2022 to lead education at American Stage, the department wasn’t just in transition — it was in full identity recalibration. Pre-pandemic, the program ran on improv classes. Post-pandemic, the momentum had dissolved. There was no “returning to normal,” because normal didn’t exist anymore.

Most people would try to glue the old system back together.
Jose didn’t.
He asked, “What does this community actually need now?”
And then he rebuilt the whole thing from scratch.

Acting classes. Playwriting. Dance. Partnerships with national teaching artists who brought new skills and new energy. A trauma-informed framework that treated students like actual human beings navigating an actual world — not just ticket buyers in training.

That alone would’ve earned him applause.
But that’s not why he’s getting an Orange Blossom Award.

Jose pushed the ecosystem itself.

He insisted that BIPOC students see stories onstage that looked like their own lives — championing works like Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans and Familia de Flamingos. He showed this city what it looks like when an education department isn’t an accessory to a theatre… but a cultural engine.

A rehearsal for *Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans* at American Stage — one of the culturally expansive works Jose Avilés championed during his tenure as Director of Education. Photo credit: American Stage

He met the community where it really was, not where a brochure wished it would be.
He changed who felt welcome.
He broadened what “arts learning” meant.
He built programs that will outlive his tenure.

And yes — he did all this without ever being the loudest voice in the room.

Jose has since moved to EPACENTER in East Palo Alto, California, as the Director of Performing Arts, leaving behind a program that’s sturdier, braver, and more honest than the one he inherited. And here’s the kicker: he didn’t get nearly enough credit while he was here — because people doing foundational work rarely do.

So today, we fix that.

The Orange Blossom Award goes to Jose Avilés — for rebuilding an education department, expanding the city’s cultural vocabulary, and proving that real change doesn’t always arrive with a spotlight… but it definitely deserves one.

What Are the Orange Blossom Awards?

A month-long series from The Arts Passport celebrating the people and organizations whose quiet, steady work strengthens Tampa Bay’s arts ecosystem. No applications. No campaigning. Just community-driven recognition, released daily in December.