Theater designer and director John Blankenchip died April 1in Los Angeles of age-related causes. He was 89.
Blankenchip was emeritus professor at the USC School of Theater, where he taught directing and experiemental theater for 54 years.
He founded Festival Theater USC-USA, which became the first university-based contingent to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, traveling there 23 times between 1966 and 2005 and which also performed in London, Amsterdam Paris and Germany.
Locally, he designed for the Guild Opera Company in Hollywood, La Jolla Playhouse, Ebony Showcase Theatre in L.A., and was a resident designer for Ray Bradbury’s Pandemonium Theatre Company, designing 15 productions at venues across the city, including the Ivar, Edgemar Center For The Arts, the Court Theatre, and most recently, Fremont Centre Theater in South Pasadena, where hie designed shows including “Green Town,” “Dandelion Wine,” “Leviathan ‘99,” “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit,” and more. He was scheduled to design “The Martian Chronicles” for its fall 2009 production.
Born in Independence, Kansas, he received an MFA in directing and designing from Yale in 1943.
While serving in the U.S. Army, he served as assistant to designer Harry Horner on the wartime Broadway production “Winged Victory,” continuing in that capacity when George Cukor transferred the show to film in 1944.
Blankenchip contributed scenic, costume and lighting designs to two subsequent Broadway shows, “Angel in the Pawnshop” (1951) and “The Long Watch” (1952). He taught at Sarah Lawrence for eight years, then joined the faculty of USC in 1955.
The USC School of Theater established the John Blankenchip Visiting Artist Endowment in recognition of his 50 years of service in 2005.
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