Looking Glass Theatre
Opened in June of 2003, Looking Glass Theatre has remained one of Millies Engineering Group’s most important legacy projects in the past two decades. Alongside Morris Architect Planners, our final collaborative design has gone on to win awards and distinguish itself as one of the landmark built environments in the Water Tower Arts District. This structure is one of a kind, housing a vintage, still operational water pumping station alongside the theatre.
As with all artistic collectives, the Looking Glass Theatre Company began with a story. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll serves as the foundation for the troop, which above all aims to bring the audience into a new world filled with merriment and whimsy. Combining improvisational and traditional rehersal processes for its seasonal show offerings, no one truly knows how a performance will play out during showtime.Unsurprisingly, the Looking Glass Theatre Company has won several awards, including a Tony.
It’s almost poetic that the venue itself embraces the spirit of transforming traditions. The location is important not only to the world of theatre, but to the city of Chicago as well. Looking Glass Theatre Company is housed within the historic Water Tower Water Works building on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. It holds the distinction as one of the few structures to survive the Chicago Fire of 1871, and still pumps hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to the northern suburbs of Chicagoland every day. With Looking Glass Theatre Company having a stellar record of 15 years of Chicago performances, it was invited by The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs to move into the water station as its first permanent home. It was an important moment for performing artists and their fans - a rare chance to interact with Chicago history that has largely disappeared. Ever since, it has become an important cultural touchstone loved by artists, locals, and tourists alike. In many ways, its the largest impact Millies Engineering Group has made on the city of Chicago.
The design enabled the construction of two stages, and the main stage in particular allows Lookingglass to reconfigure both the stage and the audience based upon the needs of the production. At a maximum capacity of 240 persons, it is outfitted with a balcony fitting 60 total, a subtle architectural reference to the traditional playhouses in Victorian England around the time of Shakespeare. Additionally, the ceiling is stripped down, allowing the historic nature of the space influence the emotional feeling of the space. Apart from the main stage and supplementary second stage, the design added public and performer event space like lobbies, dressing rooms, and concessions areas to support stakeholders in an holistic way.
Like the built environment it inhabits, Lookingglass aims to be cutting edge in all meaningful ways. Founded in 1988 at nearby Northwestern University, after 2003 it has used this space to evolve into a nationwide leader in production and sharing its ensemble-based techniques with Chicago-area students and teachers. Despite their work being produced in over a dozen US cities, Lookingglass has certainly embraced their artistic voice as a Chicago flavor, winning the 2011 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. It has found a way to appeal to all types of audiences, leveraging classic productions like Ovid’s Metamorphosis or Homer’s The Oddysey with more flashy, experimental approaches to Chicago stories, like David Schwimmer’s adaption of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
