Every year, Dell’Arte presents The Prize of Hope to a popular theater company “who has worked for human hope in a daring, loving, vulgar, serious, poetic manner with sparkling energy.”

Tim Robbins’ Actors’ Gang accepted the award from Dell’Arte, and Denmark’s Institute for Popular Theater in Blue Lake Saturday evening.

The partnership with Dell’Arte and The Institute for Popular Theater sprung from students — with Dell’Arte students studying in Denmark and Danish students studying with Dell’Arte.

Helga Rosenfeldt-Olsen was one of the students from Denmark to do her master’s program at Dell’Arte, for which she received her MFA over dinner. Her parents founded the Prize of Hope, and awarded the prize to Dell’Arte in 2005.

For Helga, she was coming back to a second home.

“The first thing I got was a ‘welcome home’ from the Logger Bar,” she said.

Lars Olsen (Helga’s father and founder of the Prize of Hope) felt that the recognition of popular theater needed to span beyond Scandinavia, and Dell’Arte was the first American theater company to receive the award. They are also the first to give it.

Olsen said during a presentation in the Carlo Theater on Saturday night: “The prize of hope is a vision which is bigger than any human being, I was lucky to get it.”

The night started with a five-course dinner catered by Three Foods Cafe. During the dinner, everyone was toasted and introduced by members of Dell’Arte and the Institute for Popular Theater. The beverage for the toast was hand-made elderberry wine by Olsen’s wife.

After guests ate and drank their fill, a few more speeches, and two Danish songs, everyone filed into the Carlo Theater for a presentation by Robbins’ Actors’ Gang.

The Actors’ Gang is currently performing an adaptation of the novel “1984,” and has performed the play in 40 states. The company has been around for roughly 27 years — although they can’t agree on that fact. For this reason, Robbins said, they have been celebrating their 25th anniversary for three years now.

The Actors’ Gang has been known for doing plays that are timely, political and, according to Dell’Arte, the embodiment of the spirit of the Prize of Hope.

While Robbins has been in large Hollywood productions (“Shawshank Redemption” and “Mystic River”), he said he was honored to receive this award from Dell’Arte, a physical theater company, because that’s where The Actors’ Gang’s roots are.

Robbins said that even though they all work in film, when they come into the theater they aren’t allowed to talk about it.

The Actors’ Gang produces plays and has programs for children and prisoners — their core value being to provide theater for people who can’t afford it.

Olsen said the prize is from the down up, and they want to award it to the front-runners of the field of popular theater.

After a presentation, and question-and-answer session crowd met with even more people on the lawn outside the theater. There, the prizes were presented.

A mask, not a monetary prize, was presented to the Actors’ Gang.

Robbins said: “Hope is something that doesn’t just happen. It’s something you have to work for, honor, protect and inspire in other people.”

Robbins encouraged the crowd to push for change, saying that if Barack Obama were to be elected, he can’t change things on his own and would need help from everyone.

Robbins told the group that even if they are doing a play that only 100 people see, they can still impact those people and more through the story.

“You can tell a truth to a 100 people and it will resonate longer and with more people than if you tell a lie to a million,” he said.