Judith Ann Easton (1955-2025)
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Founder and Artistic Director of The Commons Theater, co-producer of The Off-Off-Loop Theatre Festival, regular contributor to Wisdom Bridge and Touchstone Theater, and Democratic political activist – Judith Ann Easton has passed away.
Judith’s Chicago theater career flourished after graduating with an MFA in Acting and Directing from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1980, she became a founding member of the critically acclaimed and Jeff Award-winning The Commons Theatre. Alongside fellow co-founders Mike Nowak and Kathleen Thompson, Judith’s vision and talent helped elevate The Commons to prominence in the Off-Loop theatre scene, where she also served as one of its final Artistic Directors. Her standout performances included roles in THE THREE SISTERS, TALES FROM HOLLYWOOD, CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, and THE LOWER DEPTHS. Judith also left a lasting mark with Touchstone Theatre, where she regularly reprised the role of the Fox in their holiday production of THE LITTLE PRINCE. In a 1989 review, The Reader's Lawrence Bommer praised her performance: “My favorite scene was the lovely exchange between the Little Prince and Judith Easton’s marvelous Fox. Without condescension or cuteness, Easton touchingly conveys the Fox’s lesson that we’re made unique by what we tame.” The following year, Patrick Clinton wrote: “Judith Easton gives the Fox a hectic, doggish quality without falling into mere physical gags … She has to get across Saint-Exupéry’s central idea: that we must tame the world and be tamed by it if we are to live happily. As she performs the famous speech, the stylized gestures seem utterly in character, a way of underlining the magic behind the words.” Judith also performed in KABUKI MEDEA, a groundbreaking production directed by Shozo Sato for Wisdom Bridge Theatre, which toured to the Kennedy Center in DC. In addition to acting and directing, Judith co-produced the Off-Off-Loop Theatre Festivals. Passionate about grassroots theatre, she championed emerging voices and small storefront productions—companies driven by little more than creativity, resilience, and the sweat of dedicated artists. Her voiceover work also brought her talents to the airwaves through UNSCHACKLED, a radio drama with a devoted listenership spanning more than 75 years, which offered a meaningful opportunity to merge her theater work with her Christian faith.. Judith was proud to earn certification from the American College of Sports Medicine and went on to become a sought-after health and wellness professional, working as a personal trainer, aerobics instructor, meditation coach, and fitness specialist both independently and at Galter LifeCenter at Swedish Covenant Hospital. She deepened her meditation practice through training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with its founder, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Judith was born and raised in the small college town of Delaware, Ohio, where her father, Loyd Easton, was a philosophy professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, specializing in the works of Hegel and Marx. As a teenager, Judith spent summers working as a tour guide at the nearby Olentangy Caverns. She completed high school a year early and headed to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she studied sociology and theatre, before deciding to get her MFA in Acting and Directing from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago. The youngest of three, Judith lost her mother to cancer at the early age of eight. When she herself was diagnosed with cancer at the same age as her mother, she fought intently, and during the time when she was well enough, she relished working on episodes of UNSHACKLED, one of the longest-running radio dramas in history and one of a very few still in production in the United States. Judith loved to travel, take road trips with her husband, Lawrence Hammer, a longtime professional in the film industry with a deep appreciation for storytelling, who shared Judith’s passion for the arts and progressive ideals. Over the last two decades, Judith became increasingly involved in local politics, proudly advocating for liberal and progressive causes, and serving as First Vice Chair of the Addison Township Democratic Organization and Library Trustee for the Village of Addison. In a fitting final chapter to her artistic journey, Judith was recently honored by UNSHACKLED for 45 years of service—recognizing a lifetime of storytelling rooted in faith, compassion, and conviction. Predeceased by her brother, David Easton, Judith is survived by her husband, Lawrence Hammer; step-children Blake Irwin, Julia Rhodes, Alex Darr; sisters Carol and Anne Easton; cousins, nieces, nephews, innumerable friends and theatre and radio audiences whose lives she touched. |