Ken Webster
has been actively involved in the Austin theatre scene as an actor, director, producer, and playwright for nearly four decades. He has served as the producing artistic director of Hyde Park Theatre since 2001. From 1988–2001 he was the artistic director of The Subterranean Theatre Company, and from 1986–1991 he was a resident director at Zachary Scott Theatre. He was a company member at The State Theatre from 1998-2001. Webster was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2006.
Webster has appeared in and directed over a hundred stage productions and has been nominated for 48 B. Iden Payne Awards and 23 Austin Critics Table Awards.
He received the B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Direction in 1983, 1984, 1990, 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008, and the Austin Critics Table Award for direction in 2003 and 2012. He is the only Austin director to have been honored with awards for directing in each of the last four decades. In 2010, Webster was nominated as Best Director by The Austin Theater Examiner for all four of the productions that he directed that year. In 2010, 2012 and 2013 he was voted Outstanding Theatre Director in the Austin Chronicle Reader’s Poll.
As an actor, Webster received the Payne Award for his performance in Eric Bogosian’s Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll in 1993, and an Austin Critics Table Awards for his one-man performances in St. Nicholas, by Conor McPherson and Thom Pain (based on nothing), by Will Eno in 2007. In 1999 Webster received the Critics Table John Bustin Award for “Conspicuous Achievement.” In 2009, he received The Austin Theatre Examiner Award for Outstanding Performance in a Comedy for his role in House, by Daniel MacIvor.
Webster’s directing credits include Wakey, Wakey, The Wolves, The Moors, The Christians, John, The Flick, The Realistic Joneses, Middletown, Slowgirl, Tragedy: a tragedy, The Aliens, Circle Mirror Transformation, Dog Sees God, Body Awareness, The Atheist, The Collection, The Homecoming, The Drawer Boy, True West, A Lie of the Mind, The Pillowman, The Glory of Living, A Behanding in Spokane, Pageant, and the world premieres of Bombs in your Mouth, Perdita, Art Stripped Naked, Ham, and Something Someone Someplace Else.
His stage acting credits include The Night Alive, The Good Thief, The Collection, Edmond, Glengarry Glen Ross, Blackbird, The Water Principle, Vigil, American Buffalo, True West, and The Pillowman. Webster’s film and television credits include Temple Grandin, Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Friday Night Lights.
Webster has acted in and directed five Will Eno plays and has directed five plays by Annie Baker.
Webster served on the board of directors for The Austin Circle of Theatres from 1984-1986, and again in 1989-1990. He attended the University of Houston.
