Angelo State University Theatre Prof Elected to Regional Post

Michael Burnett, assistant professor of theatre and assistant director of University Theatre at Angelo State University, has been elected to a three-year term as vice chair of Region 6 of the Kennedy Center American College Theater, a national program involving more than 600 academic institutions.

Burnett, who also serves as the 2015-16 Region 6 festival host, the Fringe Festival coordinator and the Region 6 webmaster, will automatically become the region’s chair for a three-year term at the completion of his vice chair commitment.

One of eight geographic KCACTF regions, Region 6 includes college theater programs in five states: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In February, Angelo State served for the first time as the host of the KCACTF Region 6 Festival, which brought about 800 college students to campus. In both 2013 and 2014, ASU University Theatre also had plays selected for presentation at the Region 6 Festival.

Raised in Midland, Burnett joined the faculty of ASU’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts in 2011. He also has served as a faculty senator, as host of the Texas UIL One Act Play Region II A Festival in 2015, and as the college/university chair of the board of directors of the Texas Educational Theatre Association. He will serve as host again of the UIL festival in 2016 and of the KCACTF Region 6 Festival in 2016 and 2017.

Prior to joining ASU, Burnett worked as was the resident designer and technical director at the Seven Stages Theatre in Atlanta, as facilities manager at North Carolina Wesleyan University’s Dunn Center for the Performing Arts, as chair of the Theatre Department at Huntington University in Indiana, and as a teacher and designer for the graduate theatre program at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Sul Ross State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Mississippi.

The Kennedy Center American College Theater (KCACTF) was founded in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, founding chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Through state and regional festivals, the KCACTF honors excellence of overall college production and offers student artists individual recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing, and design. More information is available at www.kcactf.org.