He transformed the festival from a summer program for semi-professional actors into one of the top regional theaters in the country by leading the Ashland, Oregon-based company beyond its Shakespearean repertoire.
He produced plays by Bertold Brecht, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and August Strindberg and added the Angus Bowmer Theatre in 1970 and the Black Swan in 1977 to the festival's original theater, the Elizabethan Stage.
[2][3][4] Turner directed more than 40 productions at OSF, including The Iceman Cometh, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Long Day's Journey into Night, Major Barbara, Macbeth, Mother Courage and Her Children, Pericles Prince of Tyre, The Tempest, and The White Devil.
He directed a number of his own translations of Swedish and Norwegian plays including The Dance of Death, An Enemy of the People, The Father, Ghosts, Peer Gynt, Rosmersholm, and The Wild Duck.
[2][5] Turner loved both classical texts and new work, and always sought to find in both ways to surprise and stimulate audiences.