Highland Park High School Honors Teacher with New Black Box Studio Theatre

For 36 years, Tim Conway taught theater arts at Highland Park High School. During his tenure, Conway’s dream was for the school to build a 170-seat Black Box Studio Theatre behind the larger auditorium located inside the school.

The Highland Park High School’s auditorium which seats about 1000 people, plays host to many of the its bigger productions and according to colleague Scott Shallenbarger, is “ … ideal for large-scale productions that are epic in feel.”

But what Tim Conway had in mind was something smaller that would offer a special connection between the students who perform at the events and those who come to see them perform.

“The Studio Theater provides the gift of an intimate story-telling relationship between audience and actors,” Shallenbarger adds.

When black box theaters were first “created” in the 1960’s and 70’s, they were designed to offer lower budget actors and audience members a more “pure” theatre experience – removing the all of technical aspects of the art and allowing the performance to be the main focus.

Any space could be transformed into a theatre and usually involved a very simple set up like a thrust stage and an arena. Conway dedicated his life to teaching theatre arts and to him erecting a black box theatre at Highland Park High School meant building “The best theatre in the Midwest.”

What was once one man’s vision, immediately inspired the school and its supporters to fulfill Conway’s dream this year after his passing on June 26.

Tim met with architects in the building’s planning stages because he wanted both the auditorium and the black box theatre to share a common area for building sets and storing production scenery.

As a result, the blueprints for the theatre today capture the essence of what Conway envisioned during the initial plans. Not long after that, Highland Park High began raising funds to help with the costs to finance the entire theatre.

Initially, the referendum for the project only covered the construction of part of the building. Then a Highland Park family made an anonymous donation of $22,500, gifted in honor of Conway and Shallenberger. Now, plans for the theatre not only include the building, but furnishings as well.

Lexus of Highland Park believes that Tim Conway’s dedication to his students and to the erection of the High Park High School’s Black Box Studio Theatre is guaranteed to inspire a new generation of performers with the same level passion and love for the arts held by its founder.