Suburban native jumps at 'Crazy' role in Chicago

Most people leave Woodfield Shopping Center with a sweater or a pair of shoes. Trevor Morgan went home with a career.

Living in Des Plaines at the time, Morgan was only 5 when a stranger approached his family at the Schaumburg mall and told them their son had the perfect look for a particular TV commercial. The man gave them his card and, after they made sure he was for real, Morgan went on his first audition.

“I believe it was a Mrs. Dash commercial,” Morgan recalls. “And I got it.”

From that point on, the world changed for Morgan, currently starring in “Women are Crazy Because Men are ***holes” at the Greenhouse Theater Center in Chicago.

From the age of 5 on, Morgan would audition for and make commercials. At first, he saw it as “an extracurricular fun activity.”

Morgan's acting really heated up, however, when he was 10 or 11 and his family moved to Los Angeles.

“My dad is a commodity trader,” Morgan explains. “At the time we moved he was working on the floor at the Mercantile Exchange. Everything was going digital and there was a firm in L.A. looking for people to trade electronically. We moved out as a trial to see if my dad liked working out there.”

Morgan continued to audition for commercials, but being in L.A. brought him far more work — so much, in fact, that he withdrew from school.

“I was home-schooled,” Morgan says. “I took online classes and graduated early from high school. My plan was to go to college, but I got a job in a movie in Canada when I was 17. And I just kept working.”

His credits include roles in movies such as “The Patriot” and “The Sixth Sense,” as well as TV appearances on “ER,” “CSI: Miami” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

Morgan only recently began to branch out from movies and television into acting in live productions.

“During my teen years I always figured stage acting was something I could never do, because acting onstage uses such different muscles,” Morgan notes. “But when I got older I started thinking that that was a challenge I definitely wanted to try. Besides, as an actor, if there is a role that really scares you, you have to do it.”

Morgan appeared in some sketch-comedy shows in L.A. Then, as chance would have it, there was an opening in a play his girlfriend, JJ Nolan, was appearing in.

“Women are Crazy” had an initial run at the Mercury Theater last July. Morgan returned to Chicago to see the play, and to visit his family, who had moved back to Hoffman Estates.

“I was talking to my agent about doing something in Chicago,” Morgan says. “Chicago has such great theater, and I really wanted to challenge myself.”

As it happened, the people behind the play wanted to do another run of it in Chicago. There was an opening in the cast and the director offered the role to Morgan.

“It was a no-brainer,” Morgan laughs. “It was a chance to be back home and be with my girlfriend. It just worked out.”

The play, a lighthearted look at relationships, has taken Morgan out of his comfort zone. But that is a good thing.

“In theater you have to make sure the last row hears you as well as the first row,” Morgan explains. “And in film and television you don't want to overrehearse something. In theater you rehearse past that point. When it gets stale you have to rehearse past it, so you understand it at a completely different level. But that is what is really cool, too.”

“In this show I play Benny,” Morgan adds, “a guy who is in a relationship that is fueled completely by passion. Just raw passion. It is not the healthiest relationship. But it is very funny.”

“Women are Crazy Because Men are ***holes”

<b>Location: </b>Greenhouse Theater Center's downstairs main stage theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, (773) 404-7336, <a href="http://www.greenhousetheater.org" target="_blank">greenhousetheater.org</a>

<b>Showtimes: </b>7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 5 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays; through Sept. 25

<b>Tickets: </b>$29-$39