Craig Brooks, professional television producer, will receive this year's Department of Theatre Distinguished Alumnus award.

Brooks graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1994. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Drama, he spent a year touring with the Missoula Children's Theatre before moving to Chicago, then Florida, and eventually Los Angeles to pursue work in television and film.

He has enjoyed a successful career as a showrunner and producer for television for twenty years, working on reality television and game shows for many companies, including MTV, Fox, The WB, BET, VH1, TBS, NBC, and ABC.

Notable work includes (but is certainly not limited to) "Taildaters" and "Parental Control" for MTV, "Family Game Night", "Hip Hop Squares", "Idiotest", Jimmy Kimmel's "Big Fan", and "Million Second Quiz" which was hosted by Ryan Seacrest. He is currently Executive Producer and showrunner for the Facebook Watch daily trivia show "Confetti". He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Dorothy and their two sons.

Even though he is working behind the scenes these days, Brooks says he still uses the training he received at the University of Arkansas.

"I still rehearse and prepare, only now it's usually for pitch meetings or run-throughs," he says. "I use so many of the performance skills I learned from my time as a Drama student every day, writing scripts, rehearsing blocking, working beats. Right now, I'm on a game show but it all goes back to what I learned in college and my training there."

Craig Brooks will receive the Distinguished Alumnus award at the Department of Theatre's Season Preview and Scholarship Reception.

The reception is an annual event put on by the department to celebrate their students, alumni, and supporters. It includes recognition of scholarship recipients, performance and design awards for the past season's productions, information about shows in the upcoming season, and of course the presentation of the Distinguished Alumnus award.

The reception will be held Saturday, May 4 at the Chancellor Hotel.

A version of this story also appeared in the Fulbright REVIEW.