Gisela Fritzsching Memorial Scholarship

Gisela Fritzsching was an actress and a faculty member in the Theatre Department at SUNY Brockport from 1968 to 1990. She received her training in the theatre and spent her early career as an actress in her native Germany. Mrs. Fritzsching left Germany when the Third Reich began posting soldiers backstage at performances to ensure that all actors followed approved scripts.

She came to Brockport in the 1950s, and was a founding faculty member in the Theatre Department, where she was known as an inspiring teacher and gifted mentor. She received a SUNY Chancellor’s Award in Teaching in 1985. Mrs. Fritzsching also was a talented actress who appeared in many departmental productions as well as productions for every major Rochester theatre company.

As a faculty member in Theatre and in Arts for Children, she was famous for feeding students, helping with their transportation, and doing whatever it took to keep them in school. Mrs. Fritzsching passed away in 2015.

The Gisela Fritzsching Memorial Scholarship recognizes a student in good academic standing who is a major or minor in the Department of Theatre and Music Studies or an Arts for Children major, with a concentration in theatre at either the graduate of undergraduate level, and who exhibits passion and talent for the craft of theatre.