Andrew Porter points out that we missed reporting the death of theater designer and director John Blankenchip, who died of old age on 1 April 2009. Born in Independence, Kansas, on 14 November 1919, he was also an emeritus professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Theatre (he joined what was then the department of drama in 1955), as well as the founder of Festival Theatre USC-USA.
The Festival Theatre company was a group of USC students and alumni who performed on the Fringe of the Edinburgh International Festival. Blankenchip directed their works for 23 seasons between 1966 and 2005, as well as leading the company to perform in London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Germany.
Blankenchip was a designed for the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, the Guild Opera Company in Hollywood, and the LaJolla Playhouse.
According to this Los Angeles Times obituary, since 1972, he was “Ray Bradbury’s designer of choice for productions of his plays—most recently for ‘The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit’ at the Fremont Centre Theatre” in early 2009. Bradbury told the Times “he did designs for 15 of our plays. He was wonderful. The greatest thing he did about 10 years ago was ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’; it was brilliant.”
Porter notes that Blankenchip was “working on ‘The Martian Chronicles’ for a Fall 2009 production at his death.”
After earning a BA in design and directing from Carnegie Mellon University in 1941, and an MFA from Yale in 1943, Blankenchip designed scenery, costumes, and lighting on and off Broadway for three years. He taught from 1946 to 1954 at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.