On graduation from high school he spent three summers in a Pennsylvania on-week stock company directed by Alvina Krause,[2] where he played parts ranging from Ernest in The Importance of Being Earnest to Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

He also attended the Yale Drama School as a director and came to New York City in 1953 where he studied in Lee Strasberg's private class and then for a number of years at the Actors Studio.

[3]) In 1972, Morrison became one of the founding faculty of a new Actor Training Program along with Norris Houghton and Joseph Anthony at the State University of New York at Purchase, where he taught for 18 years and was awarded the Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Teaching and is now Professor Emeritus of Theater Arts.

For The American Place Theater, he directed Harry, Noon and Night by Ronald Ribman, with Dustin Hoffman and Joel Grey and in Chicago a long-running production of Pinter’s The Caretaker.

On Broadway, he directed Jack Klugman in The Sudden & Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson by Douglas Taylor, and for ABC-TV two musical revue scripts by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.