John Sumner AO CBE b.1924

In 1977 Sumner established a bustling office, workshop and rehearsal facility in South Melbourne. He also adopted the Athenaeum Theatre in Collins Street as a venue for larger-scale productions. In May 1984, after years of frustrating delays, he moved MTC’s main performances into the Playhouse at Melbourne’s new Arts Centre. The Playhouse was designed with MTC’s requirements in mind, and it was leased to them for 40 weeks every year. For the inaugural production there he chose Robinson Jeffers’ translation of Euripides’ Medea; Zoe Caldwell returned from Broadway to star in it.

John Sumner retired at the end of 1987, around the time of the company’s 460th production. Back in Britain Sumner lived quietly near Oxford, writing his memories of the 34 busy years he had spent in Australia, almost all of which he had devoted to creating and developing the Melbourne Theatre Company and to nurturing the people who worked there – and the audiences that it attracted and entertained. At the time of his departure, the MTC’s attendances were at an all-time high.

Sumner was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1971. He became an Australian citizen in 1975 and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1985.

John Sumner retuned to Melbourne in 2003 to participate in the MTC’s 50th birthday celebrations. To mark the occasion the company launched the John Sumner lecture series. The first speaker was the MTC’s current director, Simon Phillips. ‘I’m in awe of Sumner,’ he said. ‘I could not have set up the structures in the way that he did. And they have been followed everywhere around the country. He had the vision and the ability to get the support he needed from influential people. You always need a certain amount of luck, but John worked like crazy to bring it off.’

Back in 1975, the Council of Adult Education’s Colin Badger said this of his colleague: ‘Sumner is as tough as a boot, but he reminds me of the definition of a Christian – as cunning as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. Once he said “Right” to bargain, you didn’t have to worry about the paperwork, you knew he would keep his word. And he never disparaged anybody else’s production.’

Frank Van Straten, 2007