Matt Fotis

Matt is the founder and current Artistic & Managing Director of Shantz Theatre. Matt received his BA in Theatre Arts from Monmouth College and his MA in Theatre Arts from Illinois State University. He is an award winning playwright whose plays have seen stages from coast to coast.  In 2002, his play The Zebra Baby won the Sonoma County Repertory Theatre’s New Drama Works SCRipts Festival, and in 2003 The Mystery of Simon Levene received Second Place in the same contest.  His play The Candid Biography of a Single Chess Table Chosen at Random on an Ambiguous Spring Day in Central Park was produced in the 2002 Pittsburgh New Works Festival where it won a Donna Award, and was a PlayLabs selection in the 2005 Last Frontier Theatre Conference.  He also was named a finalist for the Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence (Lincoln’s Lagoon - 2002); a finalist in the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre Annual New Play Festival (The Van Gogh Exhibit – 2004, A Year in the Life - 2005); was a featured selection of The Chameleon Theatre Circle’s New Play Festival (The Marriage of Marcus Tyler - 2003) and was a finalist and honorable mention recipient in the 2005 Theatre Publicus Award for Dramatic Literature (A Year in the Life).  The Diner Variations was added to the Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Archives at the Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute at The Ohio State University.  Additionally, the opening monologue from The Van Gogh Exhibit was recently published in Audition Arsenal: 101 Monologues by Type, 2 Minutes and Under for Women in their 30s by Smith & Kraus publishers.  His plays have been produced by Ten Grand Productions, Theatre on the Square, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, The Pittsburgh New Works Festival, Shantz Theatre, The Bryant Lake Bowl Theatre, Anvilhead Theatre, Monmouth College, The Pegasus Theater Co., The Indianapolis Fringe Festival, The Chameleon Theatre Circle, Blackbox Theatre Productions, the Kansas City Fringe Festival, Illinois State University and the Sonoma County Repertory Theatre. 

Matt has also worked extensively in improvisational theatre studying at Improv Olympic and The Brave New Workshop, and has been a member at one time or another of Fingergun (2001-2003), The Jerry Azumah Players (2002-present), Anvilhead Theatre (1999-2001), Scotch Tape Improv (1998-99) and The Improv Mafia (2003-present).  Matt has also received the 1st Place Award in the KCACTF National Critics Institute Region III Critics Competition and has served as a web critic for the Minnesota Fringe Festival.  In addition, his Master's Thesis Improvisational Theatre: In the vanguard of the postmodern, which was awarded the James Fisher Award for outstanding thesis in the College of Fine Arts at ISU, explores improvisational theatre as a postmodern theatrical form and investigates the various ways in which improvisational theatre functions in the postmodern world.

Contact Matt at matt@shantztheatre.com!