Thom Cox

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Thom Cox, born Thomas J. Cox, is an American theater producer and co-founder of Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. He studied at Northwestern University, where he met David Schwimmer and six others who later started Lookingglass.

Cox has worked on more than forty productions, including West, The Jungle, The Odyssey, Arabian Nights, The Master and Margarita, They All Fall Down, Summertime, Great Men of Science, and Algren: For Keeps and a Single Day, in which he played Nelson Algren. The show was adapted for television in an Emmy-nominated co-production with WTTW. He has also portrayed Winston in 1984, Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop (which earned a Joseph Jefferson nomination), Hook in Peter Pan: a play, Our Town, Black Diamond, Lookingglass Alice, Big Lake, Big City, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Cox served as Lookingglass’ Education and Community Program Master Teacher for more than a decade (2007–2018). In other regional theater, he has appeared at Illinois Theatre Center, Victory Gardens, Northlight Theatre, The Court Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Writers Theatre, and Goodman Theatre, where he played Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol.

He has directed for Eclipse Theatre Company, Piven Theatre Workshop, and Lookingglass, for which he wrote and adapted The Scarlet Letter (a Joseph Jefferson-nominated production). In summers, he and his wife, stage manager Chris Freeburg, worked at Weston Playhouse Theatre in Vermont, appearing in Chicago, Oklahoma!, Urinetown, Tartuffe, and Blithe Spirit. He also co-directed Weston Playhouse’s Young Company, directing two musicals.

Cox has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago as an adjunct. His film and television acting credits include Since You’ve Been Gone (Miramax), Chi-Girl, Brotherhood (Showtime), and Chicago Fire (NBC).