The Bush Foundation has given an Enduring Vision Award to Michael Sommers

He will receive $100,000 over the next three to five years to encourage his continued work. The Enduring Vision Award is the only award of this size and intent in the country. Only three awards are given annually to artists in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota who have at least 25 years experience as working artists.

For the 2009 awards, nominations were received for artists working in the performing and literary arts (2010 awards will consider visual and media arts).
Michael Sommers, from South Minneapolis, has practiced the theater arts as a designer, director, composer, performer, playwright and technician, both locally and nationally for thirty years.

In 2000 he and his partner, Susan
Haas, co-founded Open Eye Figure Theatre, and in 2007 the company opened an intimate venue in South Minneapolis. Sommers’ work has been seen in venues ranging from major cultural institutions to back yards and the street.

Through these experiences, and drawing from traditional theatrical forms, classical text, populist entertainment, folk art and the comedy and “tragedy of our daily lives,” Sommers says he “creates original work that speaks in a
contemporary voice directly to the audience.”

His work has been presented at the Walker Art Center and in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Canada and Mexico. He is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota.