Jim Zulevic

Dr. Ralph L. Lane, 78, died after a long period of declining health. Although he lived in retirement in Key West most of the last decade, he made his career in Chicago and Northern Illinois, where he taught and inspired some of the most renowned names in contemporary theatre. As a young teacher in the 1950s and 1960s, in charge of the drama program at Glenbrook High School, Lane counted Frank Galati and distinguished critic and academic Letitia Dace among his students. Later, after completing his doctorate in theatre, Lane was a long-time professor at Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal, where John Malkovich, Judith Ivey, Ricardo Guttierez, Peggy Roeder and Gene Weygandt were among his lengthy list of students. Lane’s wife, Rowena (known as Ronnie), who died just months before he did, also was an Illinois State faculty member and costume designer.

Malkovich and Ivey both have credited Lane for his impact on their careers, while Dace—in an e-mail from her retirement home in Bonaire—observed that Lane “strove for authenticity in his productions. Those whom he directed absorbed that lesson well. What a great contribution he made to my life and to the American theatre of the latter half of the 20th century.”

Speaking to PerformInk by telephone, Frank Galati recalled that it was Ralph Lane at Glenbrook High School who gave him his first directing assignment, of a play Galati also wrote. He also credited “Dr. Lane” with steering him towards Northwestern University, adding, “I don’t think I would have gone there if not for him. We all adored him and feared him and had deep, deep respect for him. He was a devoted mentor and friend. He was a great man and an inspired teacher and he could be tough. But he had a wonderful sense of humor.”

Galati confirmed that Lane was instrumental in the education of Malkovich, Rondi Reed, Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Laurie Metcalf and Tom Irwin, all members of the original Steppenwolf ensemble, and served as an advisor and director when they first formed a theatre company in Highland Park in 1976. It was Lane who introduced Galati to the future Steppenwolf gang, of which Galati himself now is a member. “Ralph would invite me down to Illinois State to critique his acting students,” Galati explained. “The first time I saw John Malkovich and Laurie Metcalf was in a class of Ralph’s at ISU. I was supposed to critique them [but] I had nothing to say. You could tell they were brilliant.”

After retiring from Illinois State, Lane returned to Chicago, where he established Arts Lanes Productions in 1985 in association with producer Douglas Bragan at the Ivanhoe Theatre. Little known to general audiences, Arts Lanes continues to stage daytime matinees of Shakespeare for high school students, playing to hundreds of thousands over 20 years and employing hundreds of Chicago actors. Still in partnership with Bragan, Arts Lanes now is under the artistic directorship of another Lane protégé, Ricardo Guttierez, with productions staged at the Apollo Theater.

Commented Bragan, “Ralph’s approach to these Shakespeare shows was quite different than many other companies. The shows are not shortened all that much. They run about 2 hours without intermission, which is almost the whole play in the case of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and probably two-thirds of Romeo and Juliet. This is at least 40 minutes more material than in the 75-80-minute versions that Chicago Shakespeare does, as an example. In an artistic sense, Ralph was adamant about breaking down the 4th wall and using the audience as much as possible, which works especially well with high school students.”

Bragan continued, “Ralph was one of the best directors and most creative artistic minds I have ever seen. I learned a great deal from him, and his ideas continue to influence me to this very day. As an educator, he was a giant. His greatest legacy will probably be the students he had, many of whom have become major stars. Through them he will have an effect for generations to come.”

Also a U. S. Army veteran, Lane is survived by a son, a daughter, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He was buried on Dec. 28 in Waterloo, IL.

The death of Ralph Lane was not a great surprise after years of ill health. That of Jim Zulevic, only 40 years old, of an apparent heart attack on Jan. 7, was a huge shock. Zulevic was a South Side boy, born in 1965, who attended St. Thomas More Grammar School and Brother Rice High School, and who worked at his dad’s Bridgeport gas station after school. From taking a class with Don De Pollo when he was 17, Zulevic entered the world of improvisational comedy, working his way up to the mainstage of The Second City in the 1990s and then to a Hollywood TV and film career that may have peaked with his guest shot on the final episode of “Seinfeld.” He also was a frequent stand-up comic in Las Vegas.

Meantime, Zulevic focused on writing and directing, making frequent return visits to Chicago where, among other commitments, he became the token straight guy director of the GayCo sketch comedy troupe. Working with GayCo over a period of five years, he staged the troupe’s 2004 monster hit, Weddings of Mass Destruction, and the 2005 Christmas follow-up, Do You Fear What I Fear?

In the wake of his death, GayCo issued a press release dedicating their Jan. 14 appearance at the Chicago Sketchfest to Zulevic. At the time of his death, Zulevic had moved back to Chicago and was a writer and co-host of Second City Radio, the WCKG-FM show that began last spring as a six-week experiment.

Observed one life-long friend, who wished to remain anonymous, “Jim had put his acting on the back burner. His real strengths were in writing and directing. As an actor, invariably he got cast as The Fat Guy. He used to say, ‘I may be the fat guy, but I can do other things, too.’ He had a tremendous work ethic.”

The untimely death of Zulevic extends what might be dubbed “The Curse of the Second City Fat Guys,” a pantheon of talented men who died young, among them John Belushi, John Candy and Chris Farley.