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Constable: District 214 theater director's legacy lasts as his memories fade

The new John K. Marquette Fine Arts Endowed Scholarship created by the District 214 Education Foundation is proof that its namesake got his message across.

"The performance of a play didn't end when the curtain closed and the lights went down," the acclaimed theater director used to say. Now 79, with his career finished and his once-bright mind dimmed by dementia, Marquette's shining legacy will be preserved beyond the spotlight by the scholarship.

Marquette mentored a host of talented students at Prospect High School, Buffalo Grove High School and Hersey High School who went on to make careers in show business. But the teacher, speech coach and director also advocated for kids who weren't stars and struggled to fit in.

"I hope we'll make the attitude of the school more kind, more loving and more accepting," Marquette told the Daily Herald in 2003 when he directed Prospect High School's production of "The Laramie Project," about the killing of a young gay man. "We'll be better off if we start accepting people for what they are. We don't have to join them. We have to stop killing them."

His son, Kyle Marquette, 52, who teaches English, serves as fine arts coordinator and directs theater productions at Hersey, directed "The Laramie Project" at Hersey that year and shares his father's philosophy.

"The learning you do in a theater production translates into so many aspects of life," says Kyle Marquette, who, even as a child, was able to talk about theater with his dad. "He (John Marquette) spent time making sure every member of the show reached his or her potential. The merit was in the means to the production."

  Even as a child, Kyle Marquette would talk to his father, John K. Marquette, about theater productions. As fine arts coordinator, English teacher and theater director at Hersey High School, Kyle Marquette says he shares his dad's desire to use theater as a tool to educate and bring out the best in kids and the audience. Mark Black/mblack@dailyherald.com

John Marquette directed more than 100 plays, appeared in commercials and acted in many local theater productions. But he also found joy in seeing his students find their place in the world. In 2010, Ian Brennan, who starred in Marquette's production of "Fiddler on the Roof" in high school, won a Golden Globe as a writer for the TV show "Glee" during an awards show that also featured Jennifer Morrison, another Prospect theater kid famous for roles in popular TV series such as "Once Upon a Time," "How I Met Your Mother" and "House."

"That's like being an athletic coach and seeing two of your star players make it to the major leagues," Marquette told the New York Post, which claimed Marquette was the inspiration for "Glee" choir director Will Schuster.

"That's something that's not really true. But that's something that will be on Wikipedia forever," Brennan told the Daily Herald's Dann Gire in 2015. "John Marquette was much more mature, much more cantankerous. He was not the sentimentalist that Will Schuster is. He's a much more sophisticated man."

Starring in "Fiddler on the Roof" while a student at Prospect High School, Sorin Brouwers, center, says director John K. Marquette, left, changed his life. Now Brouwers is a professional actor best known for playing the role of Wyatt on HBO's "Westworld." courtesy of the Marquette Family

Marquette "was at the helm of a ship that hosted a lot of talent," and "he knew things about you before you knew them yourself," says Sorin Brouwers, an actor best known for playing Wyatt in HBO's "Westworld." A 1995 Prospect graduate, Brouwers remembers how he was goofing off in the hall one day when Marquette pulled him aside.

"I remember him sitting me down in that theater and telling me stories about Don Quixote," recalls Brouwers, who wasn't a theater kid and had "no idea" about Quixote, but enjoyed Marquette's chat. "It wasn't condescending and it was truly magical. I ended up playing that role in 'Man of La Mancha.'"

It was cool, even for athletes, to be in one of Marquette's plays, Brouwers says.

"I was a sports kid and auditioned on a whim," says Patrick Quinlan, 34, a 2002 Prospect graduate and actor who has appeared in numerous TV shows and commercials. "Mr. Marquette went above and beyond. My grandfather passed away when I was a senior, and Mr. Marquette came and paid his respects. I hadn't told him. He must have read it in the paper."

Marquette sent many of his best students on to theater careers at Loyola University.

"He really is a gem, and he could tell an amazing story," says Mary Luckritz, the English/fine arts division head at Rolling Meadows High School who met Marquette when she was a teen in plays with Kyle Marquette at Maine West High School, and who later worked for John Marquette making costumes and serving as his assistant. "He understood the human condition. He knew theater could make a difference. He was always the bar I wanted to measure against."

In addition to standing up for kids who were different or bullied, Marquette was a great director, says David McDonald, one of Marquette's student actors who now serves as senior pastor of Windsor United Church of Christ in Windsor, Wisconsin.

  Playbills from some of the more than 100 plays directed by John K. Marquette, a legendary theater director in District 214, tell only part of the story. Some of his students now make their living in showbiz, and many others credit him for giving them confidence. Mark Black/mblack@dailyherald.com

Marquette had to extend the run for his production of "Godspell" at Buffalo Grove High School in 1975. "Who adds nights to a high school production?" McDonald says. "It was that good."

Marquette has four children from his first marriage - Kyle, Kevin, 56, Lisa, 53, and Chris, 51. He's been married to fellow teacher Barb Fryzel-Marquette for 17 years and has known her for 30.

"It was amazing to see how he could pull such adult emotions from 16-year-olds. He was a miracle worker," says Fryzel-Marquette, who has a collection of letters from his former students thanking him for giving them confidence. Information about donating to the scholarship is online at 214foundation.org/scholarships.

As a child, Julie Summers, Morrison's younger sister, remembers a scene in Marquette's production of "Dirty Work at the Crossroads" where she had to kick the villain.

"Mr. Marquette told me I should actually kick him, so I took his advice and kicked Sorin Brouwers as hard as I could rehearsal after rehearsal and night after night of performances," emailed Summers, who acted and sang in high school and now works as a music therapist. "Being in this play not only kick-started my love for theater, it also was very empowering for me! … Thanks to Mr. Marquette, to this day I never hesitate to kick the villains I encounter in life in the shin if need be."

Marquette's inspiration wasn't limited to students or actors.

Shown here on the set of his production of "1776," legendary high school theater director John K. Marquette often spent long hours making sure the construction, makeup, costumes, lighting, sound and other aspects of his shows could meet his standards. courtesy of the Marquette Family

"The man was an artist. He made the room warm just by his talking," says Jim Wicklund, who taught with Marquette at Notre Dame High School in Niles in the 1960s and later served as assistant principal at Prospect. "I wanted to be an actor when I was around him. Now, I go to every possible play I can."

That example rubbed off on Kyle Marquette.

"I saw the mutually rewarding relationships my father had with his students. He flourished and grew through the relationships he had with students," Kyle Marquette says.

That relationship endures beyond the final curtain calls.

"Just this morning, I had an audition and I was thinking of him," Brouwers says during a phone interview last week. "I owe so much to him. I can't stress enough how influential this guy is. He's a life-changer. He's the real deal."

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