About Robert Hetherington

Professor Hetherington currently holds a Faudree University Professorship (2015-2018). He Chaired the Department from 1997-2012, and was previously Professor and Artistic Director at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, for eighteen years. Recently, he served as the inaugural Provost Fellow at UofM and completed a year as Special Assistant to the President for Strategic Planning. He was twice honored with Tyrone Guthrie Awards for artistic work at Canada's Stratford Festival and has received the Dean's Creative Achievement Award (2004) and The Alumni Association Achievement Award (2007). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Education

ABD, MA Northwestern University, 1977
BA College of Wooster, 1974

Admitted

Member, Stage Directors & Choreographers (SDC)--the national labor union

Experience

Professional

Directed over 100 dramatic, musical and opera productions professionally at Playhouse on the Square, Circuit Playhouse, TheatreWorks, The Canon Theatre, Opera Memphis and Theatre Memphis (locally); for venues in Dayton, Columbus, Chicago, and Cincinnati; also for several university theatres. In Memphis he has been recognized with more than a dozen Memphis Theatre Awards (The Ostrander) for Directing or Best Production. He was founding Resident Director for The Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton, Ohio, before coming to Memphis and worked in Canada as an assistant or associate director with Brian Bedford, Michael Langham, Tadeusz Bradecki, Diana Leblanc and Richard Monette.

Representative directing projects include the UofM Centenary Celebration production of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, 1776, Jerry Springer the Opera, Crazy for You, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Inherit the Wind, Chess, Angels in America, Scotland Road, The Seafarer, Urinetown: The Musical, Sweeney Todd, Stuff Happens, Elegies: A Song Cycle, Parade, Hay Fever, Cyrano de Bergerac, Anton in Show Business, Twelfth Night, Cabaret, Peter Pan, Hamlet, and (most recently) The Physicists.

Administrative

Honors and Awards

Research and Scholarly Activities

Research Interests

Teaching interests: Stage Directing; theatre history; dramatic literature; Shakespeare; musical theatre

Publications

• Commissioned essays published by The Shaw Festival of Canada in their house programs on Light Up The Sky, The Mountaintop, Guys & Dolls, His Girl Friday, Harvey, Wonderful Town, The Magic Fire, and Happy End (2005-2015)
• Commissioned essays published by The Stratford Festival of Canada in their house programs on The Physicists, Blithe Spirit, Pirates of Penzance, The Misanthrope, Peter Pan, The Importance of Being Earnest and Waiting for Godot (1996-2015)