Back in the 1950s, John Sumner did something truly shocking: he mounted a professional production of an Australian play, Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. He went on to encourage the development of David Williamson, Alan Hopgood, Alexander Buzo, John Romeril, Ron Blair, Jim McNeil, Nick Enright, John Power, and Alma de Groen among many others. A pioneer in theatre, he also laid the foundation for a professional Australian film and television industry.
On May 24, Melbourne Theatre Company lost its founding father and longest-serving Artistic Director with the death of John Sumner in Melbourne a few days short of his eighty-ninth birthday.
