Stewart F. Lane (born May 3, 1951) is a Broadway producer, director, playwright and former actor. He has also written books, including Let's Put on a Show![1] and Jews of Broadway. He has also produced in Dublin. In addition to publishing two plays, he has directed across the country, working with Stephen Baldwin, Shannen Doherty, Chazz Palminteri, and more. He is co-owner of the Palace Theatre (Broadway) with the Nederlander Organization and a partner in the Tribeca Grill with Robert De Niro, Sean Penn and Mikhail Baryshnikov.[2] He has written three books: Let's Put on a Show!, Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers, and Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way.
BroadwayHD
In 2015, Lane and his wife, Bonnie Comley, launched BroadwayHD. BroadwayHD is a subscription-based streaming service for stage performances with a mission to promote and preserve live theatre, extending the reach of Broadway and Broadway-caliber shows to anyone, anywhere. With a growing catalog of over 300 full-length productions, each show is filmed with high definition cameras that capture the excitement of a Broadway performance and deliver the best angles, video quality, and sound quality to users.
Theatre
In 1974, Lane earned his Actors Equity card performing in The Little Theater on the Square in Sullivan, Illinois, playing in Oklahoma! starring Peter Palmer. He later toured in summer stock with Van Johnson in Send Me No Flowers (1975). In 1976, Lane worked at the Piedmont Repertory Company starring in Picnic, The Philadelphia Story and The Odd Couple. In spring 1977, Lane co-starred with Ed Herlihy in Never Too Late at the Fox Hollow Dinner theater in Jericho, New York. Later that year, he joined the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA unions and moved to California and wrote the first draft of his play In the Wings.[5] Returning to New York City in 1978 he worked as assistant house manager at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre during the run of Same Time, Next Year by Bernard Slade. Lane also worked at the theater during Tribute starring Jack Lemmon and later at the Alvin Theatre during the run of Annie. His first billing as "Assistant to the Producer" was for Whose Life Is It Anyway? starring Tom Conti.
Off-Broadway and regionally, Lane produced: Jay Johnson: The Two and Only, Fortune's Fools, Sarah Abraham by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman, Eating Raoul – The Musical, Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz composed by Allen Menken.
In London, Lane produced Thoroughly Modern Millie (Olivier Nomination), Ragtime (Olivier Nomination and Lobby Hero. In Dublin, he produced the world premiere of JFK: A Musical Drama
Expanding into film, Lane produced the documentary Show Business: the Road to Broadway and Brooklyn Rules starring Alec Baldwin and Freddy Prinze Jr. Lane produced the Broadway production of Company starring Raul Ezparza, Cyrano de Bergerac for Great Performances on PBS.
Lane previously sat on the board of directors of Rogar Studios and currently is on the board of trustees of The Actor's Fund of America. Lane sat on the board of governors of the Broadway League for eleven years and still remains a member of the League. He is on the board of advisors for the American Theater Wing and previously The Times Square Group. Lane is the chairman of the board of directors of the Theatre Museum.
Lane has created scholarship funds at Columbia University Business Graduate School, and Boston University College of Fine Arts Undergraduate School, (B.F.A) as well as major support to the University of Massachusetts, Emerson College and Fiorello H. La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts School.
Authorship
Lane wrote Let's Put on a Show, a guide to theatre production, in 2007.[6] In 2011 he wrote Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers which talks about Jewish performance from immigrants and Yiddish productions on the Lower East Side to their impact on Broadway.[7]
He has also written the plays In the Wings (published in spring 2008 by Hal Leonard), If It Was Easy (published by Performing Books and nominated for Best New Play by the American Theatre Critics Association), and the musical A Moment in Time (musical)|A Moment in Time (with music and lyrics by John Denver). He has directed extensively with productions of A Moment in Time (at the Dix Hill Performing Arts Center in Huntington New York), The Foreigner, The Gig, Ain't Misbehavin', If It Was Easy, The Golden Age, Frankenstein, Final Appeal with Chaz Palminteri and Stephen Baldwin, and In the Wings with Shannen Doherty.
Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way, Lane's third book, was released in 2015.[8] The book is a comprehensive discussion of African American's contribution to theatre.
Other activities
Representing former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Lane served on the Board of Directors at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center and the Transitional Committee where appointed both the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs and the Commissioner of Film, Theater & Broadcasting.
Lane serves on the board of trustees at Boston University[citation needed] and the board of advisers in the College of Fine Arts.[9] He co-chairs the CFA Campaign for Boston University as well as the Dean's Advisory Board. In 2002, Lane was awarded Boston University's Distinguished Alumni Award.[10]
Lane is also the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award.
In 2013, Lane co-founded BroadwayHD with his wife, Bonnie Comley.[11][12] In 2014, Lane and Comley produced an HD broadcast of Romeo and Juliet starring Orlando Bloom, which was screened in over 2,000 movie theaters.[13][14] The theater streaming platform officially launched in 2015.[15] In 2016, BroadwayHD and its founders, Lane and Comley, broke the Guinness World Record for the first Broadway show to be live streamed. Roundabout Theatre Company's production She Loves Me was streamed on June 30, 2016, on BroadwayHD.[16]
Currently, Lane is president and chief executive officer of Stellar Productions International and Stewart F. Lane Productions. He is the co-owner and operator of the Palace Theatre in New York City, and partnered in the Tribeca Grill Restaurant with Robert De Niro.
