Linsey Falls (1970 - 2023)
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Linsey Falls – stalwart character actor in everything from kids’ shows to Shakespeare, known as the epitome of the Chicago storefront actor – has died at the age of 50 in his home in Chicago, from natural causes.
A partial list of the many, many companies Falls worked with: Lifeline Theatre, City Lit, Prop Thtr, Idle Muse, Akvavit, Eclectic Full Contact Theatre, Babes With Blades, Manual Cinema, and UrbanTheater Company. He also performed regularly with the competitive live lit show, Write Club. Falls’ credits are literally too many to list but a partial show list of his prolific time gracing Chicago’s stages is as follows: For Lifeline Theatre: Inspector Lestrade in Christopher M. Walsh’s “Miss Holmes Returns”, “Middle Passage”, “The Man Who Was Thursday”, the Lifeline KidSeries production of “Lyle Finds His Mother”, and “The One and Only Ivan” (National Tour). For Factory Theater, where Falls was a longtime collaborator: “Hotel Aphrodite” (“where he played the lascivious Councilman Allton, crashing a dinner party in a toga”); “Namosaur!”, where he played “Stan ‘Tiger-Ass’ Hudson, the foul-mouthed marksman serving in Vietnam alongside Bigfoot and eaten by a dinosaur”; and “Fight City”, where he “fought for change as an activist in a dystopian matriarchal society.” For Prop Thtr: “Comedy of Errrors” (2009), “Black Gold” (2010), “Debris of the Prophet” (2012), “Slaughter City” (2013), “Round and Round” (2014). “A Summer’s Day”, “Solar Storm”, and Blue Planet” (Akvavit Theatre); “Arms and the Man”, “The Sign of the Four”, “Frankenstein”. “The Birthday Party” and “Prometheus Bound” (CityLit Theatre), the weekly “That’s Weird, Grandma!” (Barrel of Monkeys); “FIGHT CITY”, “Hotel Aphrodite” and “Namosaur” (The Factory Theater); “Ghosts of Treasure Island” (Adventure Stages Chicago); :Henry V” (Promethean Theatre), “Lolita de Lares” (Urban Theater); “The Black Slot” (AstonRep Theater Company); “Mementos Mori” and “The Magic City” (Manual Cinema), “Upon this Shore: A Tale of Pericles”, and “The Daughter of Tyre” (Idle Muse Theatre Company); and as director, he worked with Eclectic Full Contact Theatre on both their Half Hour Audio Hour podcast and Crashbox Festival. Falls was born in Hinsdale Hospital, while his parents were living in suburban Downers Grove. Linsey Falls attended Morehouse College as an English major, and then went into Web development, working for a few years in the Philippines. He arrived in Chicago in the mid-aughts, and quickly began making a name for himself in the Chicago comedy and theater scene. Falls is remembered as an actor, a singer, a man about town, a hard worker, a comedian, a great scene partner, an even better drinking partner, a traveling partner, and the kind of person without whom there would be no Chicago storefront theater – as generous, supportive, and funny as they come. |