Rather suddenly, John Morris has become the busiest theater architect in Chicago. With three such design jobs behind him and three more in the works, he is creating important new performance venues in everything from storefronts and former factories to a recycled aerobic dance studio.
It was his fondness for stagecraft that lured Morris into architecture in the first place, and provided him with some of the hands-on savvy he draws on in designing theaters today. But in a toughly competitive architecture town like Chicago, his rising profile is worth examination. This is particularly true since his most challenging job-a new home for Steppenwolf Theatre-may turn out to be one of the best new legitimate houses seen here for some time. Morris, 40, is a partner in the eight-person architecture firm of James, Morris & Kutyla, a youngish team that does business in a space carved out of a former rubber glove factory at 944 W. Huron St. (In a city that routinely tears down its landmarks, it is good to know that at least the funky little spaces are getting protection even if the downtown masterpieces aren`t.)
While rather languidly pursuing a pre-law degree at Oakland University in the late 1960s, Morris earned money by working for the Meadowbrook Theater on the campus in Rochester, Mich.
”I was a master carpenter, a stage electrician and a scenic artist for two years,” Morris recalled. ”I became fascinated by stagecraft-all of the visual aspects of theater-and I liked the technical people I met. Eventually, I got into set design. I was self-taught.”
In the 1970s, having earned his B. A. at Oakland, Morris opened his own little Chicago scenery shop. He turned out work for off-Loop theaters and, when things were really slow, did drywall and remodeling jobs.
Drama critics praised his artistry in such productions as ”Great Jogging Liberals,” an otherwise forgettable comedy revue that ran at the Apollo. ”My own favorite was an an Expressionist cabaret set I did at Second City for a production that was a spinoff from a Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition,” said Morris.
The young scenographer`s introduction to architecture came in the middle 1970s, when he was helping design a production of ”As You Like It” to be performed in the auditorium at the east end of Navy Pier.
”Jerry Butler was chief city architect at the time and he was planning that wonderful renovation of the pier that was completed as a 1976
Bicentennial project,” said Morris. ”We were developing an elaborate lighting grid for the play and Butler and the other city architects were concerned about how it fit into the whole scheme of things. It was exciting. I loved the technology of architecture, and working with these people, and that`s when I made my decision.”
The decision was to enroll in the University of Illinois at Chicago`s intensive three-year program that turned out architects who already had completed college programs in other fields. Morris studied under such famous U. of I. practitioner-teachers as Thomas Beeby, Stanley Tigerman and Laurence Booth. He got his architecture degree in 1983.
”I started job-hunting that summer at the big shops like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, but then one day I ran into Bernie Sahlins (founder of Second City) and he said, `Why don`t you go ask my architect if he has any job openings?` ”
Sahlins` architect was George A. Veronda, a 41-year-old Vietnam war hero who had his own small office and had just won a national design award for a distinguished residence in New Buffalo, Mich. When Morris dropped in for an interview, Veronda hired him on the spot. The opportunity to learn a lot in a hurry was appealing to Morris, for in Chicago`s larger firms, even a talented newcomer may spend an eternity just detailing window shapes or coping with the design of skyscraper rubbish chutes.
”But it soon became a grim time, a sad time,” Morris recollected. ”A month after he hired me, George was told he had lung cancer, and six months later, he was dead.”
With the help of another architect, Morris kept Veronda`s practice in motion for a while, finishing old jobs and handling a few new ones that came in. After that effort ran its course, Morris began forming the partnership that today includes himself, William James and Leonard Kutyla.
Most architecture firms shun the image of narrow specialization, since that can discourage diversified design business that might otherwise materialize. Morris is quick to point out that his firm`s other work has included a steel plant, a hotel, a collection of shared-time hunting lodges in Montana and a substantial number of residential jobs.
Yet the theatrical expertise of Morris and his colleagues is not to be ignored, particularly in a city like Chicago, where small new theaters seem to be sprouting almost like dandelions in May.
Morris designed the 90-seat studio at the Organic Theatre, 3321 N. Clark St., and only last fall turned a couple of storefronts into another 90-seater for the Live Bait Theatre, 3914 N. Clark St. Not long ago, he completed work on a 280-seat home for the Remains Theatre in a recycled brick industrial building at the southeast corner of Chicago Avenue and Green Street. Construction of that one is on hold for the time being.
For Sahlins, once the client of Veronda, Morris has now created the Willow Street Carnival in a 19th Century, three-story brick loft building at 1800 N. Clybourn Ave. (Willow flanks the other side of the site, hence the name.)
The Carnival is part of a larger retailing and entertainment complex, the other spaces of which were designed independently by the architecture firm of Pappageorge & Haymes Ltd. In the Carnival cabaret theater space, Sahlins will this spring open a show inspired by Spain`s El Comediants, a troupe that offers a blend of drama, dance and circus.
The Morris-designed Carnival will be entered off Clybourn, after which patrons will pass a variety of unrelated indoor, mall-like storefronts before entering the theater itself. Its tiered banquettes, little tables and thrust stage will be visually reminiscent of Second City, which is hardly surprising when you consider how long and how well the Old Town comedy theater has thrived under Sahlins in its familiar space.
Still, the Carnival will be no mere copycat exercise. The lighting will be more elaborate, for one thing, and Morris is rather excited about a frieze that artist Richard Hall is painting above the stage. Sahlins is toying with a few other rather more offbeat final touches, and in the casual and good-humored Morris, he seems to have found a kindred creative spirit.
A less architecturally interesting but still lively prospect is offered by the two-theater (and later, probably three) facility designed by Morris in a former aerobic dance studio at 2700 N. Halsted St. There, New Yorker Michael Frazierhas opened a Chicago production of the musical ”Oil City Symphony” in an auditorium of about 400 seats. The two side-by-side houses should be comfortable even if a bit spartan.
The new Steppenwolf Theatre is the most challenging and elaborate of Morris` theatrical commissions thus far. Morris has designed a 525-seat mainstage theater, a 150-seat studio and a rehearsal room for the
distinguished company.
The new facilities were originally to be part of a large multiuse building at 1630 N. Halsted designed by another architecture firm, but Steppenwolf recently decided against that location because of construction delays. The 1630 project was launched by the financially troubled Royal Faubion, who owns that site and the older Royal George theater-restaurant complex across the street.
Still, Steppenwolf remains on track to move from its cramped existing quarters at 2851 N. Halsted into new ones by September of 1990. Theater spokesmen say Morris` plans can probably be followed in essentially the same form at a new location.
Morris has worked closely with theater design consultant Richard Pilbrow on the Steppenwolf project. ”He`s absolutely the best so far as I`m concerned,” said Morris. Pilbrow, a Briton, recently moved his main office from London to New York.
Perhaps the biggest challenge has been to expand Steppenwolf`s present seating capacity of 190 to 525 in the new mainstage space without sacrificing the feeling of intimacy. The designers appear to have succeeded by including a balcony and not being too generous with space between rows of seats-a difficult tradeoff, since playgoers want comfort as well as close rapport with the actors.
Steppenwolf`s balcony is to be wrapped around the auditorium side walls in the form of boxes that almost overhang a modified thrust stage. ”Because they`ll be able to see each other, people upstairs and downstairs will feel that they`re together, not isolated, and that will enhance the audience dynamic,” said Morris.
Pilbrow wanted 33-inch row spacing (the measurement is made from seatback to seatback), but the Chicago building code dictates a minimum of 34 inches and everyone concerned finally settled for 36. In the old Steppenwolf, no seat is further than 40 feet from the stage. In the new one, the downstairs distance will increase to only 43 (and about 47 in the balcony).
Smitten by Chicago`s industrial look, Pilbrow is pressing for exposed brick and latticed trusswork around the proscenium that is suggestive of the city`s elevated tracks and old fire escapes. That could be carried too far, of course, and one hopes it won`t as the job moves into final detailing.
Morris, meanwhile, is understandably just as enthused about the stagecraft that will be possible in the new Steppenwolf. The low-ceilinged existing theater has neither a fly loft nor wings adequate for the lateral movement of scenery mounted on wheels.
Certainly, the new Steppenwolf will add a rich extra dimension to the work of its widely acclaimed resident company and sharpen feelings of excitement about Chicago`s theater construction boom. And for Morris, it promises to be a solid achievement, indeed, for someone whose career in architecture-as such things are measured-is barely under way.
