La Grange native Nygel D. Robinson wins 15 national theatre awards with Mexodus
NORTH CAROLINA’S OWN NYGEL D. ROBINSON WINS 15 NATIONAL THEATRE AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST MUSICAL, WITH MEXODUS
La Grange native’s two-man, live-looped musical becomes the first Off-Broadway production to win the Drama League’s top musical prize since Rent in 1996.
LA GRANGE— On the heels of the 79th Annual Tony Awards, a musical with roots right here in Lenoir County is experiencing the success of a lifetime. Nygel D. Robinson of LaGrange, N.C. is a graduate of the North Lenoir High School Drama Department and went on to co-write, compose, and star in a two-man show called Mexodus that has spent the season beating out full-production Broadway spectacles to win 15 major theatre awards, including Best Musical honors from four of the country’s most respected awards programs.
Most notably, Mexodus won Outstanding Production of a Musical at the 2026 Drama League Awards - the first time in 30 years an Off-Broadway production took the award. The last time this happened was Rent in 1996, which famously went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical, becoming one of the most commercially successful musicals in American history.
Mexodus is on its way. The show is an electrifying mix of musicality, technology, and culture. What started as an idea on Zoom during the pandemic days of 2020 evolved into a full-fledged musical Robinson co-wrote and co-composed with Emmy-nominated writer and performer Brian Quijada. It’s a live-looped, hip-hop musical that tells the story of a portion of the Underground Railroad that helped people find freedom from Texas into Mexico. On stage, Robinson and Quijada play between 15 to 20 different instruments, including piano, guitar, bass, and drums to build the entire musical score from scratch each performance in real time. Both actors also sing and perform leading acting roles.
Robinson, the son of Frances Robinson of LaGrange, attributes his success to the local community and educators who supported him growing up.
“Everything I am as an artist started on stage at North Lenoir High School,” said Robinson. “To go from a small town in Eastern North Carolina to being able to tell this hidden piece of American history on a New York stage, and to have audiences embrace it like this, is beyond anything I could have dreamed for myself. Fortunately, I was blessed with teachers, family, and a community who believed in me, and who continue to believe in the power of the arts as a positive force in our world.”
Robinson graduated from North Lenoir High School in 2011. The school’s award-winning Drama Department has been operating for more than 30 years under the direction of Marian Kennedy and now Bailey Sutton, producing live musicals and plays that inspire the hearts and minds of young people through creative expression in a safe and professional environment. Ms. Kennedy is a Tony Award nominated educator who served as the choral director, drama teacher, and producer at North Lenoir for over three decades and now works alongside Sutton and a host of local creative collaborators to continue bringing live theatre to Eastern North Carolina.
“As public funding for arts programming continues to get cut right here in our community, now is a critical moment to recognize the wider public benefit of live theatre programs like what we’ve created at North Lenoir,” says Kennedy. “We were all watching and cheering with joy as Nygel received these national theatre awards.”
Across the 2025–2026 season, Mexodus earned 15 wins from five of American theatre’s most prestigious awards programs, taking the top musical prize at four of them, including:
Drama League Award (2026)
Outstanding Production of a Musical
Lucille Lortel Awards (2026)
Outstanding Musical
Outstanding Director: David Mendizábal
Outstanding Lead Performer in a Musical: Nygel D. Robinson
Outstanding Sound Design
Outer Critics Circle Awards (2026)
Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical
Outstanding Score: Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson
Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical: Nygel D. Robinson
Outstanding Sound Design
Drama Desk Awards (2026)
Outstanding Music: Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson
Outstanding Book of a Musical: Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson
Outstanding Sound Design of a Musical
Helen Hayes Awards (2025)
Outstanding Production: Musical
Outstanding Lead Performer in a Musical: Brian Quijada
Outstanding Director of a Musical: David Mendizábal
About Nygel D. Robinson:
Nygel D. Robinson is a singer, actor, writer, music producer and multi-instrumentalist who got his start on the stage of the North Lenoir High School Drama Department in LaGrange, North Carolina. He has since built a national career as a performer and music director. His select credits include Brother Davis in The Amen Corner at Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he also served as music director; Jimmy Powers in Lady Day at North Carolina Theatre; Larry in Lincoln Center’s concert version of Beau: The Musical; Jesus in Godspell at St. Michael’s Playhouse; and The All Night Strut at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. A largely self-taught musician who grew up playing in church, Robinson performs on piano, guitar, drums, trumpet and upright bass, many of them live onstage in Mexodus, which he co-wrote, co-composed and co-stars in. For his performance he has won the Lucille Lortel Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Lead Performer, with additional Drama Desk and Drama League nominations.
About Brian Quijada:
Brian Quijada is an Emmy-nominated playwright, actor and composer, and the artistic director of the WildWind Performance Lab for New Play Development. The son of Salvadoran immigrants, he has spent much of his career performing Off-Broadway and at leading regional theatres, including The Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is widely known for his pioneering use of live looping and hip-hop, first showcased in his solo show Where Did We Sit on the Bus?, which has been produced across the country; his other works include Kid Prince and Pablo and Somewhere Over the Border. Quijada is a four-time Jeff Award winner, a three-time Drama Desk nominee and a Lucille Lortel Award winner. With Robinson, he co-wrote, co-composed and co-stars in Mexodus, for which he won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Musical. Learn more at brianquijada.com.
About Mexodus:
Mexodus is a two-man, live-looped hip-hop musical that tells a little-known true chapter of the Underground Railroad: the southern route that carried enslaved people across the Rio Grande into Mexico, where slavery had been abolished. Created, written, composed and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson and directed by David Mendizábal, the show follows Henry, a man escaping slavery in Texas, and Carlos, the Mexican ally who helps him, as the two forge an unlikely bond across cultures. Quijada and Robinson play every role and build every song live onstage, layering vocals and more than a dozen instruments through a looping station.
After premieres at Baltimore Center Stage, Washington’s Mosaic Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mexodus opened Off-Broadway in 2025 at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, earning a New York Times Critic’s Pick and the most Lucille Lortel Award nominations of any production that season, and returned for a 2026 Off-Broadway run at the Daryl Roth Theatre. The production plays its final New York performances through July 5, 2026, before launching a national tour at Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, July 8 through August 2, 2026.
About North Lenoir High School Drama Department:
Established in 1964 and located in La Grange, North Carolina, North Lenoir High School is the largest public high school in Lenoir County, serving over 900 students in grades 9–12. The school’s award-winning drama department has been operating for more than 35 years, producing hundreds of musicals and plays and educating thousands of students. Long-time drama teacher and director Marian Kennedy received an Honorable Mention for the Excellence in Theatre Education Award presented by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University and was awarded the prestigious Lorelle F. Martin and Michael R. Pelt Excellence in Teaching Award from her alma mater, the University of Mount Olive. Kennedy continues to support the drama department as producer alongside full-time drama director Bailey Sutton, an accomplished professional opera soprano and award-winning vocal competitor who holds a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from East Carolina University.
North Lenoir High School is part of Lenoir County Public Schools (LCPS), which serves more than 8,700 K-12 students, providing academic instruction and support at 17 facilities in Kinston/Lenoir County, North Carolina. For more information, visit nlhs.lcpsnc.org.
Photo Caption: Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada, creators and stars of Mexodus, perform the live-looped hip-hop musical Off-Broadway. (Photo: Curtis Brown)
Photo Caption: North Lenoir High School Drama Department graduate Nygel D. Robinson of LaGrange, N.C. in Mexodus.
Quijada and Robinson jump between 15 to 20 different instruments, including piano, guitar, bass, and full drum sets, during each performance.
Photo Caption: Mexodus earned 15 major theatre awards across the 2025–2026 season, including Best Musical honors from four of the country’s most respected awards programs.
Photo Caption: Mexodus creators Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson use live looping to build the entire musical score from scratch onstage in real time.
