Thomas J Cox

THOMAS J COX has been with Lookingglass since its inception in 1988, and has worked on more than thirty productions, including West, The Jungle, The Odyssey, Arabian Nights, The Master and Margarita, They All Fall Down, Summertime, Great Men of Science, as Algren in Nelson Algren: For Keeps and a Single Day (which went on to be adapted for television in an Emmy-nominated co-production with WTTW), as Winston in 1984, as Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop (Jeff Nomination), and most recently in Black Diamond and Lookingglass Alice. He currently serves Lookingglass' Education and Community Program as Master Teacher. In other Chicago theatre, Thom has appeared at the Illinois Theatre Center, Victory Gardens, Northlight, Court, and Steppenwolf Theatres. He has directed for Eclipse, Piven Theatre Workshop, and his own Jeff-nominated adaptation of The Scarlet Letter for Lookingglass. During the summers, he and his wife, stage manager Chris Freeburg, work at the Weston Playhouse Theatre in Vermont, where he has appeared in productions ranging from Chicago, Oklahoma!, and Urinetown, to Tartuffe and Blithe Spirit, among many. Additionally for the Playhouse, he serves as Co-Director of their Young Company, in which capacity he has directed two musical productions. He has also taught at Northwestern University as an adjunct faculty member. Film/television: Since You've Been Gone (Miramax), Chi-Girl , Brotherhood (Showtime). He and his wife live happily in Andersonville with their new baby girl, Joan Marie, and three cats, Bonnie, Max, and Hanna.

hometown: Manhattan, KS
college: Northwestern University
major: Theatre (Bachelor of Science in Speech, 1988)
favorite vacation destination: Weston, Vermont (though we actually are working when we go there.)
favorite book: Ulysses by James Joyce
favorite band while in high school: Beatles, though I did listen to ELO, Alan Parsons Project, and way too much Styx
favorite text Lookingglass has adapted: 1984, Through the Looking-glass or The Master and Margarita. All brilliant, all great shows, in my opinion.
favorite Lookingglass memory: Two things: when we were still renovating Edge of the Lookingglass, we sanded the floor in preparation for sealing it with polyurethane, and the night we finished that enormous project, David Catlin (who was living at the space at the time), Eliza Kairys, and I sat on the beautiful. newly fresh wood floor with the lights off so there was just ambient light from outside, and drank a beer in celebration; also, the night I announced my engagement to Chris onstage during the Wonderful Bag scene in Arabian Nights, which was also Chris' 24th birthday.