Scott Edmiston, Professor of the Practice and Chair of the Department of Theatre was recently named the winner of CAMD’s Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Faculty Award. Before he joined the faculty at Northeastern, he had already distinguished himself as a director, and indeed in 2011 he received Boston theatre’s highest honor, the prestigious Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence for his artistic body of work and contributions to the cultural life of Boston. That kind of award can function as an exclamation point at the end of a career; however, Scott has remained active and has created important work while he has been hard at work in the Theatre Department.

This past spring, he was honored with the 2016 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for his productions of Casa Valentina at SpeakEasy Stage Company and My Fair Lady at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston. Of this production, Terry Teachout, Wall Steet Journal, raved: “I’ve seen some fine My Fair Ladies in the past, but I’ve never seen one that did a better job of conveying the sweet romanticism that Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe slipped into George Bernard Shaw’s skewering of the British class system. The results are — as Lerner might have put it — loverly.” In March 2016, Edmiston received the Arts Impulse Award for Best Director of a Musical and in April he won the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award for Best Director of a Musical.

This season, Scott has remained busy and successful. His Lyric Stage production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? received rave reviews, followed by four Elliot Norton nominations: Outstanding Director, Production, Actor, and Actress. Meanwhile, he continues to direct at Northeastern. Last year, he directed the sold-out run of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Theatre students reap the benefit of having this professional at the top of his craft working with them.