Institute of Outdoor Theatre Announces 2016 Mark Sumner Award Winner

At its annual conference the Institute of Outdoor Theatre's lifetime achievement award, the Mark Sumner Award, was presented to the Executive Director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, R. Scott Phillips.

Phillips has served the Festival for forty years and was their first full-time staff employee in 1977. Since that time he has held the positions of Director of Marketing and Public Relations, Managing Director, interim Festival Director and, for the past 10 years, Executive Director. In 1989 he worked on all aspects of his Festival's major new theatre building including fundraising, design and construction, More recently he led the efforts to create the Beverly Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts which opened in the 2016 summer season. During his career he was also the stage director of over 55 university and professional theatre productions.

In addition to the Utah Shakespeare Festival he was the co-founder and past president of the national Shakespeare Theatre Association, part president of the Rocky Mountain Theatre Association, theatre panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, adjudicator for the American College Theatre Festival, and a member of numerous non-profit boards.

The Festival was recognized in 2000 with America's Outstanding Regional Theatre Tony Award, presented by the American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers. Under Phillips' leadership it grew from producing three shows per year with a budget of $329,000 to a repertory of nine plays and a $7 million operating budget.

Phillips succeeded the Festival's founding director Fred Adams who was also honored with the Sumner Award by the Institute in 1998, and both men have continued to work together since that time. Phillips himself will retire in the Spring of 2017.

The Institute of Outdoor Theatre was founded in 1963 and is located at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC in the College of Fine Arts and Communication. The Mark Sumner Award is given in honor of the Institute's first director Mark R. Sumner who currently resides in Chapel Hill, NC.

Photo: L to R: Scott Phillips, Utah Shakespeare Festival; Michael Hardy, Institute of Outdoor Theatre.

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