Salt Lake Theatrical Designer & Director to Receive USITT Award

Keven Myhre, a Salt Lake City theatrical designer and director, has been chosen to receive the 2016 Thomas DeGaetani Award from USITT. Myhre will be honored at USITT 2016 in Salt Lake City next March.

USITT annually honors a key contributor to the performing arts in the region of its national Conference & Stage Expo. The 2016 Conference will be held in Salt Lake March 16-19.

USITT's Thomas DeGaetani Award, named for USITT's first president, honors an outstanding lifetime contribution to the performing arts by an individual or organization. Past recipients included Cleveland's Playhouse Square (2015), Fort Worth Opera General Director Darren K. Woods, and the Children's theatre of Charlotte, N.C.

Myhre has spent over 30 years in Salt Lake theatre, primarily at the Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC). He is currently Production Manager at Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah.

He received the Mayor's Artists Award in the Performing Arts in 2009. In 2008 he was awarded the City Weekly Award for directing The Clean House and Moonlight and Magnolias at SLAC. His more recent directing credits include Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson and Red.

Myhre designed all of SLAC's sets and many of its costumes over the past 18 years. He has also designed for The Grand Theatre, Sundance Theatre, Memorial Theatre, Utah Musical Theatre, Egyptian Theatre, Kingsbury Hall, and the Babcock Theatre.

He earned his BFA from the University of Utah and his MFA in theatre from the University of Michigan.

Myhre said he was "amazed and honored" to be chosen for this award.

USITT's four-day Annual Conference & Stage Expo draws some 5,000 performing arts design and technology professionals from around the world. USITT 2016 will feature 280 exhibitors of entertainment design and technology products and resources. Visit the show site at www.usittshow.org.

USITT, the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, is the national non-profit serving the backstage community. USITT offers training, networking, career-building, recognition, and mentoring to improve and diversify the technical theatre fields. For more info, visit www.usitt.org.

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