George Morrison (director, acting teacher)
Encyclopedia
George Morrison is one of the leading teachers of acting in the United States
.
, he attended the public schools there and started acting in the pioneering children’s theater headed by Winifred Ward. By age 13 he was playing Tom Sawyer
in an elaborate production with the adult roles being played by Northwestern University
students. On graduation from high school he spent three summers in a Pennsylvania
on-week stock company
directed by the legendary Alvina Krause, where he played parts ranging from Ernest in The Importance of Being Earnest
to Shylock
in The Merchant of Venice
. He served two years in the United States Army
, and graduated with a Ph.B.
from the University of Chicago
. It was here that he began a lifelong friendship with Mike Nichols
and Paul Sills
. He also attended the Yale Drama School
as a director and came to New York City
in 1953 where he studied in Lee Strasberg
's private class and then for a number of years at the Actors Studio
.
His first New York production was Epitaph for George Dillon
by John Osborne
and Anthony Creighton
, which he co-produced and directed. He went on to direct improvisation
-based revues off Broadway at The Premise with a company that included Gene Hackman
, George Furth
, Cynthia Harris
and Ron Leibman
, and at Upstairs at the Downstairs - a cabaret revue that included Mary Louise Wilson
and Jane Alexander
. For the American Place Theater, he directed Harry, Noon and Night by Ronald Ribman
, with Dustin Hoffman
and Joel Grey
and in Chicago
a long-running production of Pinter’s
The Caretaker
. On Broadway
, he directed Jack Klugman
in The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson by Douglas Taylor, and for ABC-TV
two musical revue scripts by Betty Comden
and Adolph Green
.
He also created the George Morrison Studio where he offered acting classes for over 20 years and his students included Hackman and Barbara Harris
. In 1972 he became one of the founding faculty of a new Actor Training Program along with Norris Houghton and Joseph Anthony
at the State University of New York at Purchase
where he taught for 18 years and was awarded the Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Teaching and is now Professor Emeritus of Theater Arts. His students at Purchase included Edie Falco
, Ving Rhames
and Stanley Tucci
. He retired in 1988 to found, with Paul Sills and Mike Nichols, his classmates from the University of Chicago, a two-year independent conservatory for professional actor training, The New Actors Workshop, in New York City where he now serves as the president and primary instructor of acting.
Morrison along with Sills and Nichols have coached the likes of Jeff Keogh from Melbourne, Australia; Matthew Clarke, from Vancouver, Canada; Damian (Maximum) Gerard Coyle from Belfast, Northern Ireland; Kathy Hendrickson, Noelle Lynch, Jason Hale
, Aditi Das, Josh Day, John Zibell
, Jordan Ancel, Caroline Sanchez, Marta Rainer, Douglas Gorenstein, Diane Paulis, Katie Caufield, David Turner, Brendon Bates and Matt Skollar of the USA including many others.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Biography
Born in Evanston, IllinoisEvanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, he attended the public schools there and started acting in the pioneering children’s theater headed by Winifred Ward. By age 13 he was playing Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer
Thomas "Tom" Sawyer is the title character of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . He appears in three other novels by Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Tom Sawyer Abroad , and Tom Sawyer, Detective .Sawyer also appears in at least three unfinished Twain works, Huck and Tom...
in an elaborate production with the adult roles being played by Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
students. On graduation from high school he spent three summers in a Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
on-week stock company
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
directed by the legendary Alvina Krause, where he played parts ranging from Ernest in The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
to Shylock
Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.-In the play:In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who lends money to his Christian rival, Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio's flesh...
in The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
. He served two years in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, and graduated with a Ph.B.
Bachelor of Philosophy
Bachelor of Philosophy is the title of an academic degree. The degree usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects...
from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. It was here that he began a lifelong friendship with Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
and Paul Sills
Paul Sills
Paul Sills was a director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.-Biography:...
. He also attended the Yale Drama School
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
as a director and came to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1953 where he studied in Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
's private class and then for a number of years at the Actors Studio
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...
.
His first New York production was Epitaph for George Dillon
Epitaph for George Dillon
Epitaph for George Dillon is an early John Osborne play, one of two he wrote in collaboration with Anthony Creighton . It was written before Look Back in Anger, the play which made Osborne’s career, but opened a year after in Oxford in 1957 and moved to London’s Royal Court theatre, where Look...
by John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
and Anthony Creighton
Anthony Creighton
Anthony Creighton , a British actor and writer, is best known as the co-author of the play Epitaph for George Dillon with John Osborne....
, which he co-produced and directed. He went on to direct improvisation
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...
-based revues off Broadway at The Premise with a company that included Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
, George Furth
George Furth
George Furth was an American librettist, playwright, and actor.-Biography:Furth was born George Schweinfurth in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Evelyn and George Schweinfurth...
, Cynthia Harris
Cynthia Harris
Cynthia Harris is an American film and television actress.She is known for her role as Helen Hunt's character Jamie Buchman's overbearing mother-in-law on Mad About You. She has also appeared in many television series and TV movies, such as L.A. Law, All My Children and in the classic drama, Edward...
and Ron Leibman
Ron Leibman
-Career:Leibman was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s. He has appeared in many films such as Phar Lap; Where's Poppa?; The Hot Rock; Slaughterhouse-Five; The Super Cops; Up the Academy; Norma Rae; Romantic Comedy; Zorro, The Gay Blade; Garden State; and Rhinestone...
, and at Upstairs at the Downstairs - a cabaret revue that included Mary Louise Wilson
Mary Louise Wilson
Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...
and Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander is an American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film and has committed...
. For the American Place Theater, he directed Harry, Noon and Night by Ronald Ribman
Ronald Ribman
Ronald Burt Ribman is an American author, poet and playwright.-Biography:Ribman was born in Sydenham Hospital in New York City to Samuel M. Ribman, a lawyer, and Rosa Ribman. He attended public school in Brooklyn, and graduated P.S. 188 in 1944. Ribman attended Mark Twain Jr. High School,...
, with Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
and Joel Grey
Joel Grey
Joel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
and in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
a long-running production of Pinter’s
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
The Caretaker
The Caretaker
The Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
. On Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, he directed Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman
Jacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American stage, film and television actor known for his roles in sitcoms, movies, and television and on Broadway...
in The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson by Douglas Taylor, and for ABC-TV
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
two musical revue scripts by Betty Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
and Adolph Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
.
He also created the George Morrison Studio where he offered acting classes for over 20 years and his students included Hackman and Barbara Harris
Barbara Harris (actress)
Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...
. In 1972 he became one of the founding faculty of a new Actor Training Program along with Norris Houghton and Joseph Anthony
Joseph Anthony
Joseph Anthony was an American playwright, actor, and director. He made his film acting debut in the 1934 film Hat, Coat, and Glove and his theatrical acting debut in a 1935 production of Mary of Scotland...
at the State University of New York at Purchase
State University of New York at Purchase
Purchase College, State University of New York, is a public four-year college located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York system...
where he taught for 18 years and was awarded the Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Teaching and is now Professor Emeritus of Theater Arts. His students at Purchase included Edie Falco
Edie Falco
Edith "Edie" Falco is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her roles in Oz as Diane Wittlesey, as Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and as the titular character on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie...
, Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...
and Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci is an American actor, writer, film producer and film director. He has been nominated for several notable film awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance in The Lovely Bones...
. He retired in 1988 to found, with Paul Sills and Mike Nichols, his classmates from the University of Chicago, a two-year independent conservatory for professional actor training, The New Actors Workshop, in New York City where he now serves as the president and primary instructor of acting.
Morrison along with Sills and Nichols have coached the likes of Jeff Keogh from Melbourne, Australia; Matthew Clarke, from Vancouver, Canada; Damian (Maximum) Gerard Coyle from Belfast, Northern Ireland; Kathy Hendrickson, Noelle Lynch, Jason Hale
Jason hale
Jason Hale is an American actor, theatre director, and teacher. Hale spent over a decade working as a professional actor, performing at many New York and regional ensemble theaters and acting in several independent and feature films, but he is better known for directing and teaching Viola Spolin...
, Aditi Das, Josh Day, John Zibell
John Zibell
John Zibell is an independent actor/writer/director working in New York and Regional Theater.He studied acting with Mike Nichols, Paul Sills and George Morrison at the New Actors Workshop in Manhattan...
, Jordan Ancel, Caroline Sanchez, Marta Rainer, Douglas Gorenstein, Diane Paulis, Katie Caufield, David Turner, Brendon Bates and Matt Skollar of the USA including many others.