BY JONATHAN ABARBANEL
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An old bromide in our business holds that all you need for theatre is a plank and a passion. Fundamentally that may be true; but for most of the history of theatre in Western Civilization, we have constructed special places for theatre–the Greek roots of which mean, literally, "seeing place"–far more elaborate than a plank or two.
No one knows this better than John Morris, arguably the premier theatre architect working in Chicago. He hasn’t always gotten the largest or most expensive assignments, but he’s designed more theatre spaces here than any architect since the 1920’s team of Rapp and Rapp (with the Palace and Oriental theatres among their credits). His only close competition would be Daniel Coffey, whose larger, higher-profile firm oversaw the restoration of the Palace and the Oriental, and who has designed the under-construction Chicago Music and Dance Theatre.
Morris, founder and head of Morris Planners/Architects, has designed theatres purpose-built from the ground up, overseen restoration and remodeling of existing theatres, and has converted non-theatre buildings into playhouses. Unlike Coffey, who tends to undertake large projects, Morris has worked on everything from 50-seat storefront studios to proscenium houses of more than 700 seats. His projects in Chicago include the Steppenwolf Theatre, the Old Town School of Folk Music recital hall, Live Bait Theatre, Willow Street Carnival, the Organic Theater Greenhouse, Northlight Theatre, the Dunham Theatre at Kennedy-King College and the new Metropolis Centre in Arlington Heights. Two other projects nearing completion and soon to open are the multiple-stage Chicago Center for the Performing Arts and the Noble Fool Theater within the new School of the Art Institute facility at State and Randolph streets (see story page 5). Morris also is the architect for the retrofit of the Chicago Pumping Station, which will provide a 250-seat mainstage and 80-seat black box for the Lookingglass Theatre Company. Finally, Morris is working with producer Michael Cullen on the design of a performance space in the Lincoln Square neighborhood (near the Old Town School), suggestive of London’s Donmar Warehouse.
What should be obvious from this list of credits is that John Morris is THE architect of record for Chicago’s Off-Loop theatre industry. He understands the types of spaces required by different producing organizations, he knows how to work within limited budgets and he has keen instincts for the nature of theatre as both an art and a craft. The reason why is that for a decade before he became an architect, he was a theatre professional working the technical side.
Morris was born and raised in small-town Michigan, graduating in 1970 from Michigan’s Oakland College intent on going to law school. But, he says, "I started hanging out with lawyers and I didn’t really like them very much. Meanwhile, in college he held down a work-study job as a carpenter for the Meadowbrook Theatre, which was located on the campus. Following graduation, he continued to work for Meadowbrook, and also spent a summer at the Hyde Park (NY) Playhouse, where he did 10 shows in 10 weeks and ended up the summer as technical director.
Returning to Michigan, Morris spent a year as a test driver for General Motors before moving to Chicago to take a job as scenic carpenter with the Goodman Theatre for the 1974-1975 season. He spent the following year as technical director for the old St. Nicholas Theatre Company, and then worked with the short-lived Chicago Shakespeare Festival.
A key turning point occurred in 1977, when the Chicago Council on Fine Arts (precursor to the Dept. of Cultural Affairs) named Morris as one of its artists-in-residence, a gig that included a $7,500 annual stipend from the federal government’s Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). The Carter-era CETA program was a godsend for theatres and theatre artists nationwide at a time when one still could manage to live in Chicago on $7,500.
Under the program, Morris was obliged to work each year on a handful of City-sponsored theatre programs. The rest of the time, he was free to pursue whatever he wished. As a "fellow" of the Council on Fine Arts, Morris had the opportunity to meet and work with a golden horde of other young theatre artists such as Michael Maggio, Gary Baugh, Patric O’Gara, Michael Merritt and Julie Jackson. He also had the time to open and operate a small Off-Loop scenic shop on the side, through which he designed Gemini and Great Jogging Liberals at the Apollo Theater Center, then operated by Stuart Oken and Jason Brett.
The City CETA gig lasted two years. It was during this time that Morris first became interested in the impact of architecture on theatre, although he still was not involved in playhouse construction. It was a Navy Pier assignment that really opened his eyes and ears, he says, designing a show in the ballroom at the east end of the Pier. The ballroom could hold thousands of people, but his little show was performed for less than 100, swamped in the cavernous hall with its dreadful acoustics.
Morris enrolled in graduate school at UIC (then still called Chicago Circle) in 1980 and graduated in May, 1983. "I’ve always felt I got into architecture school on the strength of my portfolio of theatre designs. When I went to school, I thought I was getting the hell out of theatre," he says with a laugh. Wrong. "I thought, when I go to parties and people ask me what I do, they will know immediately." Wrong. He also thought his working hours would be shorter than they were in theatre. Wrong again.
In 1984, Morris opened his first architectural firm, the partnership of Morris and Kutyla. Their first theatre client turned out to be Stuart Oken, who needed the Apollo lobby modified to allow wheelchair access. While attempting to make his career doing residential design work, Morris continued to play on the USAA’s Theatre League softball team, with cohorts such as lighting designer Robert Shook and manager/attorney/producer Fred Solari. Literally, Morris couldn’t get away from Off-Loop theatre. A few years later, he picked up his first big theatre assignment and there he was, inescapably stuck with his passion and all those planks. "At that time," he acknowledges, "I probably had more of an idea of what makes a bad theatre that what makes a good one."
He had a chance to learn a lot fast, however, since that first big assignment was to design the new Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Morris originally was engaged by Steppenwolf as early as 1986, when the troupe still occupied the old St. Nicholas space at 2851 North Halsted. At that time, the idea was to extend the building into the parking lot on the south side, providing room to double the audience capacity and build a new stage with a fly loft. The cost and difficulty, plus the troupe’s growing reputation, soon led them instead to conceptualize a new, purpose-build house. Morris remained attached to the project through several years of planning, scouting seven possible locations. Built at a cost of about $8.5 million, the new Steppenwolf opened in April, 1991.
After 16 years as an architect and 30 as a theatre professional Morris now talks a pretty good line when it comes to understanding what makes a theatre building a good building. He talks about "circulation paths," for example, which must be separate within the building for the audience, for actors and for technical and/or administrative staff. By negative example, he recalled the old St. Nick/Steppenwolf space, in which the dressing rooms were upstairs, accessible by freight elevator. What’s more, the actors had to pass through the lobby to reach the stage. So, the house had to be fully seated and the doors closed before the performers could take their places.
But more crucial for Morris than circulation paths or even the mysterious, hit-and-miss science of acoustics, is the issue of intimacy, which Morris declares "probably is the number one thing."
"The audience-actor relationship is a two-way street," he says, with the nature of that communication back-and-forth from the stage being central to the success or failure of a space. Intimacy is shaped not only by the configuration of the stage, but by sightlines, seat-to-stage distances and use of wall space among other factors. After intimacy, "technical capability is number two for me," Morris says, "and audience comfort is number three."
One notices, with surprise, that Morris never prioritizes the exterior profile of the building, its sculptural look or public "statement." Indeed, he comments that one of the problems of inviting any ol’ architect to design a theatre is that "generally, you can’t get an architect to think like a theatre artist. An architect will always react to how it will be received as a piece of architectural art before theatre art." He doesn’t say it in so many words, but a good theatre architect–like a Method actor–has to work from the inside out, not the other way around.
As if to make the point, Morris discusses two of his highest profile projects, Steppenwolf and Lookingglass. Steppenwolf decided to build something new at a time when they’d gotten a taste of London’s West End in addition to Off-Broadway opportunities. They had not yet appeared on Broadway proper, but they knew that was where they wanted to be and how they wanted to work. They wanted an intimate house (500 seats) but with a Broadway-capable, proscenium stage, a traditional "fourth wall" type of space. And that’s what they got, adding a 300-seat black box almost as an afterthought in an upstairs rehearsal hall.
The black box, on the other hand, is what Lookingglass wanted. The flexible Steppenwolf Studio, where Lookingglass has staged several shows, became something of a model. Eschewing a defining proscenium, Lookingglass requires a space suitable for circus arts and physical theatre, and with the capacity for high-tech sound-and-light work including multiple projection surfaces. Observes Morris, "The fourth wall is nowhere to be found. Lookingglass is far more likely to fly an actor than to fly scenery. It’s almost as if it’s a found space."
For both projects Morris began with the physical work the troupe does or wished to do and formulated a space around them. His extensive professional work as a scenic artist and technical director also means he has the chops that even Daniel Coffey does not to design and outfit the stage technical systems himself, without additional consultants (although Morris regularly works with an acoustician).
Morris sees certain trends in theatre architecture nationally over the last two decades, including a return to proscenium-based designs, the renewed use of balconies and side boxes and a new viability for houses of less than 2,000 seats. He also firmly believes that Chicago’s Off-Loop has produced an admirable aesthetic of theatre architecture that combines intimacy, atypical found spaces and practicality.
"It’s a shame that the Chicago aesthetic cannot grow nationally," he says, although he himself is doing a damn good job of carrying the torch both in Chicago and beyond.