John Morris (2025)
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John Morris – the architect behind countless Chicago theaters, dedicated Board Member and Chicago Theater Person through-and-through – has passed away. In addition to multiple performance spaces across the country, Morris’ prolific, thoughtful and impactful work has literally changed the landscape of theater in Chicago, where he created important performance venues out of everything from storefronts and former factories to aerobic dance studios. Morris’ designs include: Steppenwolf Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company’s space at the Pumping Station, the Black Ensemble Theatre, Raven Theatre, the latest American Blues Theater, Chicago Magic Lounge, The Old Town School of Folk Music, Beverly Arts Center, Chicago Center for Performing Arts – as well as Francis W. Parker and North Shore Country Day’s School Auditoriums.
Morris began his theater career in the trenches, working on over 200 productions in professional theater in Detroit, New York, and Chicago. He owned and operated an independent scenic studio in Chicago, designing sets and lighting for local productions. In addition to set design, John worked as a scenic artist, master carpenter, stage electrician, rigger, stage manager, and technical director with St. Nicholas Theater Company, Wisdom Bridge Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Meadow Brook Theatre, The Apollo Theatre, and Second City, among others. He then went back to school at University of Illinois at Chicago to study architecture, and, in 1986, founded the residential and commercial architectural firm Morris Architects Planners, with Morris leading the theater design division. Morris was an artist-in-residence for the Chicago Council on Fine Arts and taught in a graduate design studio at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Morris also served for 5 years as Board President for Lookingglass Theatre Company. Two of his designs deserve special note: For the Lookingglass Theatre Company, Morris created a flexible, black box performance facility housing two theaters, along with lobbies, dressing rooms and concession areas – all within the existing façade of the historic downtown Water Tower Pumping Station. In addition, the door in the North facade was recreated based on an original historic document uncovered by the design team. For Steppenwolf Theatre’s now iconic home base, Morris employed delicate subsoil probes and measuring equipment on the site to detect vibration sources, ultimately determining that the car/bus street traffic, the underground and overground CTA “L” trains were creating three distinct sound signatures. To defeat these rumblings, engineers devised an isolation joint that cuts through the entire building, parallel with Halsted, at the point where one steps from the lobby into the auditorium Countless members of the Chicago theater community lauded Morris’ dedication to and support of their communities, including developing drawings to bring Prop Thtr up to code, working on Theatre on the Lake and The Athenaeum Theatre renovations, and consulting on the theaters in the Fine Arts Building. Longtime Chicago Theater People Keith and Karen Fort remember how they contracted with him to design their house. By all accounts, Morris was a lovely man; smart, sociable, funny, engaged and involved; and many commented that his passing is a loss to the entire performing arts community. Chris Jones said this in 2002 about Morris’ work on Raven Theater: “It may be the prosaic home of the Certified Grocery Store, but the two-story building has been turned by the noted Chicago theater architect John Morris into a two-theater complex that cannot help but raise the Raven’s profile and give this tiny troupe one of the nicest and most practical venues for theater on Chicago’s North Side.” The Chicago Sun-Times describes his Old Town School of Folk Music recital space as “maybe the best concert venue in town. The acoustics are perfect; the sightlines a dream.” Awards: Green Line Performing Arts Center: AIA Chicago, Small Projects Award, 2020 Lookingglass Theatre: USITT Architecture Award, 2005 & AIA Chicago, Distinguished Building Award, 2004 Old Town School of Folk Music: AIA Chicago, Distinguished Building Award, 1999 |