Below is a tribute from John Emigh, Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, both a colleague and friend to the late John Lucas.
"Hired at Brown as an Assistant Professor for the fall of 1969, John Lucas was, simultaneously, set designer, lighting designer, technical director, costume supervisor, front of house supervisor, stage-management co-ordinator, class instructor, and sometimes a director within the nascent Theatre Program of Brown's English Dept. His presence was instrumental in the growth of that program and, as his long-time colleague and collaborator Don Wilmeth remarks, “John’s arrival took us one more large step toward the kind of professionalism that we all desired.”
With his job converted to an administrative staff position with additional responsibilities as Senior Lecturer, in 1978 John was co-founder of the Department of Theatre, Speech, and Dance (now Theatre Arts and Performance Studies), helped mightily to get both Brown’s Rites and Reason Theater and its Playwrights’ Lab up and running, was advisor to the Brownbrokers group that then mounted an original student musical each year, and ran the Brown Summer Theatre for several years. In addition to overseeing design and technical direction for the Department and originating courses in these areas, John also regularly taught (without further compensation) a wonderful course on The Lyric Stage. He remains a treasured mentor for many, many students.
John was a superb set and lighting designer with a lightning fast mind and a wonderful ability to solve seemingly intractable problems. As our colleague Spencer Golub remembers, “He was the one who always got it, knowing what it should look like before I did.” John also had a remarkable memory. He could see the run-through of a play or dance-piece in rehearsal, and with minimal notes (if any) recall the blocking patterns or choreography in meticulous detail - well enough to lay out a complex lighting design and then laugh and shake of his head ruefully weeks later when an actor or dancer’s position on stage had changed. A complex person, he could be acerbic and sharply critical (Jim Barnhill cited him, without irony, as having the best critical mind in the Department), but it didn't take long for most students and colleagues to get beyond the sometime pose of cynicism to find the passion and love for the theatre and for young people who wanted to make theatre better that provided the focus and core of John's professional life. After retiring from Brown in 2000, John continued in his calling, notably as designer, director, and administrator with the College Light Opera Company of the Highfield Theater on Cape Cod.
Some of my own happiest moments in the theatre came in collaborating with John and in enjoying the fruits of his collaboration with others. Along with John’s other former colleagues, I miss him greatly. And, as Elmo Terry-Morgan – who knew John first in Elmo’s student days and later as a colleague – remarks, “When I think of the hard/smart working, dedicated, and sometimes ‘mischievous’ John Lucas, I will smile and release a fond little chuckle.”
There was a grace note to his passing. John, I'm informed, died on the closing night of a show he had directed at the College Light Opera Company. He knew how to mark an exit."