Clear, 53° F
Larry Hart, 81, sound engineer, actor, designer, photographer, and visual artist; of Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, passed away unexpectedly after a fall, en route to a drawing group. He had suffered a couple of mini strokes in the past year.
Frank Lawrence Hart was the fifth of seven children born into a Latter-Day Saints family in Lovell, Wyoming. Larry grew up in Powell, Wyoming, where he earned his associate’s degree in Theatre from Northwest College before moving to Chicago’s Goodman School of Drama. Larry trained in the Stanislavsky Method with Bella Itkin, John Reich, and Charles McGaw and earned his B.F.A. in Acting. It was at the Goodman that he met Pat Hart, a costume design student who would become the love of his life and creative collaborator. The couple married in 1967 and were fixtures in the off-Loop theater scene; Pat for her costumes, Larry for acting, poster design, and sound design. Larry was instrumental in developing the Off-Loop theater movement.
“He was part of this group of people who started doing really interesting plays and helped Chicago develop its own unique identity in the theater world,” said Rick Paul, a friend and scenic designer. “Before that, it was largely big national tours out of New York City that were in Downtown theaters. And then these smaller theaters started churning out really good shows.”
As a sound designer, Larry collaborated with Steppenwolf, Next, Body Politic, Pegasus, Lifeline, Bailiwick, Loyola University, Touchstone, and Organic Theater.
He founded the Take it to Hart graphic design firm in 1980.
As an actor, director, and producer, Larry worked with Tennessee Williams, James Earl Jones, Howard DaSilva, Morris Carnovsky, Len Cariou, and Eugenie Leontovich. He was Producing Artistic Director at Pary Production Company and a founding member of Kingston Mines Theater. Larry acted with Aidan Quinn, was cast by Edward Albee in a production of “Tiny Alice,” and was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award in the role of Phil Hogan in “Moon for the Misbegotten” by Eugene O’Neill at Touchstone Theater.
As an actor, Mr. Hart loved the outrageous, like when he performed as a nude cadaver that’s being embalmed and having makeup applied in a production called “Terminal” that debuted in Chicago at Kingston Mines Theater in 1971.
By day, Larry worked as a sound engineer at McCann Erickson and then for several decades at Leo Burnett Worldwide. He orchestrated the sounds being piped into theaters that helped tell stories — everything from the honking of car horns to thunderstorms and gunshots.
He was also a somewhat underappreciated visual artist and photographer.
The son of the late Howard Hart and Ethel Tippetts Hart, Larry was preceded in death by wife Patricia L. Hart, sisters Pearl Ann Snell, and Ila Dreier, and brother Heber Hart. He is survived by sisters Barbara Dodge and Rhonda Hart Johns, and brother Bill Hart, and was the devoted father of Michael Lawrence Hart of Alexandria, Virginia.
“I loved my father dearly. I loved traveling with him, we traveled to Paris in 2016 and Italy two years ago, and I just saw him at Christmas and New Year’s, and I already miss him very deeply,” said his son, Michael Hart.
Larry donated lower-extremity skin and bone through the Anatomical Gift Association. The family has chosen a private cremation.
A celebration of Larry’s life is being planned for the coming months.
