Gabriel Tarpley ’26: theatre, service, belonging

In high school, Gabriel Tarpley ’26 set his sights on an arts-centered college experience where he would be surrounded entirely by performance and creative study. When it came time to choose where to go, he found himself at Lenoir-Rhyne University— a decision that would ultimately reshape what “belonging” meant for him.

“I knew I wanted to be a theatre major before I came to college,” Tarpley said. “Lenoir-Rhyne offered me a generous scholarship, so I came here. I stayed because I built a community here. I discovered you don’t go where you want to belong — you end up where you actually belong.”

At Lenoir-Rhyne, that sense of fit appeared in unexpected ways — through theatre, through community, and through the people who would come to define his college experience.

“I hadn’t even been here a month when I went to my first audition,” he said. “I didn’t expect to be cast, but I was the only first-year in ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.’ I loved being on stage and performing my heart out. It felt right.”

Tarpley said his background in performance began long before college. “I’ve been doing music since I was in preschool,” he said. “Music was always there.”

In high school, he was active in church choir, school ensembles and marching band, moving between bass, tenor and baritone over the years.

As a result, musical theatre became the natural bridge between those experiences and his growing interest in stage performance at Lenoir-Rhyne.

“Each show reinforces who I am as a person and who I want to be,” he said. “For example, in ‘Radium Girls,’ I wasn’t just acting. I was part of set crew, special effects makeup, run-throughs, and I was also helping guide new students in the department.”

While theatre shaped much of his campus experience, his second major — human and community services — gave him another way to understand connection beyond performance. 

 “Theatre is a great major, but I also wanted something that would expand my career options and give me more options for long-term stability,” he said.

After taking a multicultural perspectives course, Tarpley began thinking intentionally about how he wanted to engage with communities outside the theatre space.

“I’m naturally curious about people,” he said. “I love hearing what other people have going on in their lives and helping solve problems. Human and community services taught me how to be there for all kinds of communities I don’t necessarily interact with every day.”

That perspective came to life through tutoring work at Centro Latino. During his time at Lenoir-Rhyne, he tutored elementary students in reading and math.

“I loved seeing those smiles when their grades improved,” he said. “I know I’m not supposed to have a favorite, but there was this one little girl who was so shy. I was one of only three tutors she would talk to. She always said she didn’t think she was smart, but she was. She came in grinning one day after she aced a test.”

His experiences in service echoed again during Tarpley’s time on the 2026 A Cappella Choir tour, The Road to Freedom. The program traced the history of the Freedom Rides and the Civil Rights Movement, bringing those stories into spaces where audiences were encountering them in real time.

Tarpley portrayed Bernard Lafayette in the program, one of the key figures in the movement. Lafayette died March 6, 2026, and Tarpley later saw a memorial honoring him at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama.

“Playing someone like that made it feel very immediate,” he said. “You’re not just learning history — you’re stepping into it for a moment. Then you walk back out into the present and realize how close all of it still is.

“It made me think about how important it is to understand other people’s experiences and accept people for who they are,” he said. “I don’t think you can live a comfortable life if you’re carrying negativity. For me, a meaningful life is about feeling love for the people around you and finding ways to make their lives better — whether that’s through service or through performance, or both.”