Keynote Speakers 2012
Legendary Designers Tony Walton & Richard Pilbrow Saturday Keynotes
Distinguished Career Award Winners 2012
Oscar, Tony and Emmy Award Winner Tony Walton
 A Director and Designer, honored with 16 Tony Award nominations for his Broadway sets and/or costumes. Pippin, House of Blue Leaves, and Guys and Dolls won him “Tonys”. Among his twenty films – Mary Poppins, The Boy Friend, The Wiz and Murder on the Orient Express earned him 5 Academy Award nominations; All That Jazz won him the “Oscar” and Death of a Salesman the “Emmy”.
Tony Walton has co-produced shows in London – three in association with Richard Pilbrow and the legendary Hal Prince. His designs for opera and ballet have been seen in London, throughout Europe, and the United States. For the last fifteen years he has been the director - and usually the designer - for acclaimed productions of many plays by Shaw, Wilde and Coward (along with new work and new musicals by both Irish and American authors) at the Irish Repertory Theatre, The Irish Arts Center, The York Theatre, San Diego’s Old Globe, and Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre etc.
In 2010, Walton directed a celebrated production of Equus for East Hampton’s John Drew Theatre at Guild Hall, starring the remarkable Alec Baldwin, with whom – last summer - he presented a fully staged-reading of Peter Shaffer’s – yet to be produced in the US – The Gift of the Gorgon, at the same venue. In 1991 he was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame.
Internationally Renowned Lighting Designer Richard Pilbrow
 Richard Pilbrow is a lighting designer, theatre design consultant and author. He is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Theatre Projects, the international theatre design company, responsible for more than 1,200 projects in over 70 countries, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Kodak Theatre in LA, and the New Amsterdam Theatre in NYC. Richard has been a producer of West End theatre, film and TV.
Pilbrow was a pioneer of stage lighting in Britain and was retained by Sir Laurence Olivier to be first lighting designer, and then theatre consultant to the National Theatre of Great Britain. In 2011 he was presented with the 2011 Knights of Illumination Lifetime Recognition Award. His most recent lighting design in NYC was Dancing at Lughnasa at the Irish Repertory Theatre. His books Stage Lighting (1970) and Stage Lighting Design - the Art, the Craft, the Life (1998) have become international texts. His recent book, A Theatre Project (2011) has been widely acclaimed. He currently lives in Ridgefield CT, USA.
Pilbrow's more recent productions include a new full length ballet for American Ballet Theatre “The Sleeping Beauty” (with Dawn Chiang) designed by Tony Walton, at the Metropolitan Opera House; “The Tale of Two Cities” — a New Musical at the Hirschfeld Theatre in September 2008; “Candida” at the Irish Rep, directed and designed by Tony Walton in March 2010, “Molly Sweeney” (with Michael Gottlieb) by Brian Friel, directed by Charlotte Moore and designed by James Morgan; “Dancing at Lughnasa” directed by Charlotte Moore (again with Michael Gottlieb).
Tony Award Winning Actor Roger Robinson - Friday Keynote
Theatre great Roger Robinson has performed for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on their ‘date night’ to see Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Following the President and First Lady’s visit, Robinson said there was a certain irony to the visit by America’s first black president to a theater which still retains a separate entrance to the balcony section — a legacy of the days of segregation when blacks were not allowed in the main orchestra section. “A hundred years ago the president of the United States would not have sat down below,” Robinson told reporters back stage after winning his Tony.
Robinson is a man of the people and his fans have a lot to say about his work, including this internet post “Roger Robinson is one of this country’s most underrated actors. I have seen him on Broadway…and he is always brilliant. I think he’s one of the best actors in the country. Period!” At SETC, we agree!
Robinson, a two-time Tony Award nominee and winner of 2009 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the August Wilson play Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, will speak to SETC audiences on building a career as a working actor. Robinson’s acting career has included stage, film and television success.
Robinson made his Broadway debut in 1969 in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? opposite Al Pacino. He has appeared in six of the late August Wilson’s ten plays chronicling African American life in the 20th century. Additional theatre credits include Amen Corner, Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, Drowning Crow, The Miser, The London Company of Jitney (Olivier Award for Best New Play 2002), The Iceman Cometh and Seven Guitars, for which he was nominated for his first Tony.
Robinson's film credits include Brother to Brother, which won him the LA Outfest Grand Jury Award Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film and a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male, Meteor and Newman’s Law. His television credits include a recurring role on Kojak, and guest appearances on Ironside, Starsky and Hutch, The Jeffersons, Law & Order, New York Undercover, ER, Rubicon, The Marcus Nelson Murders (Kojak pilot), NYPD Blue, and most recently, Foreclosure.
Photo Credit: Jemal Countess/WireImage/Getty Images
Award Winning Actor Richard Robichaux - Thursday Keynote
Richard Robichaux, an award-winning actor who appears with Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey in the soon-to-be-released film Bernie, will be a keynote speaker at the 2012 SETC Convention in Chattanooga, TN. In the film, Robichaux portrays Lloyd Hornbuckle, an accountant who becomes the nemesis of Jack Black’s character. Bernie, a dark comedy based on a true story, had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June and is slated for release in theatres in 2012.
You may remember Robichaux from the past few SETC Conventions, where he has taught master classes in Meisner technique and acting for the camera. He lives in Austin, TX, where he teaches at St. Edwards University and at The Robichaux Studio. He also acts for theatre, film and television. Last fall, he won the Austin Critics’ Table Award for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in the world premiere of David Chamber’s new translation of The Imaginary Invalid at the Mary Moody Northern Theatre. The topic of his SETC address, Robichaux says, will be the importance of teachers.
“Teachers in my life, teachers in the room, what we owe our teachers.” Born to a teenaged mother, Robichaux grew up poor in rural Texas. He credits teachers with opening doors that allowed him to become the success he is today. It started with his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Fleck, who recognized a speech impediment –Robichaux had trouble saying the S, R and L sounds – and kept him inside at recess for speech drills. “A teacher can literally change the course of who you are, who you’ll be, the job you’re capable of,” he says. “Today, I fly to universities all over the country to SPEAK. I get hired to speak now. ”And, Robichaux adds, “I have a long list of Mrs. Flecks in my life.”
Photo Credit: Chelsea Lauren/Contributor/Getty Images
Featured Guest Artist Dudley Knight - Friday Interview
Professor Emeritus in the Drama Department at the University of California - Irvine, Dudley Knight has voice, text, or dialect directed over fifty plays at Tony Award winning South Coast Repertory, where he was a member of the artistic staff for five seasons; other theatres include the Los Angeles Theatre Center, La Jolla Playhouse, American Conservatory Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, LA Actors Theatre, and Theatre West. He is currently resident voice/text/dialect director at the Pearl Theatre in New York. His vocal training includes work with such noted teachers as Catherine Fitzmaurice, Kristin Linklater, Cicely Berry, Lawrence Moe, and Robert Weede. he is certified as a Master Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework.
A founding member of Long Wharf Theatre in new Haven, CT and Magic Theatre in San Francisco, Knight's acting career has also included major roles with the American Conservatory Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, the Old Globe Theatre, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, LaJolla Playhouse, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Olney Theatre Center and others. He has played multiple seasons in major roles with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Shakespeare theatre of New Jersey and the Utah Shakespeare Festival, along with extensive work in film, television, and radio.
Knight has acted in or directed over 200 radio plays and readings that have won two Armstrong Awards, one Ohio State Award, and a nomination for a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award. He is married to noted painter and sculptor Marta Whistler.
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