Lane, Nathan

Lane, Nathan [né Joseph Lane] (b. 1956), character actor. The pudgy comic who has the qualities and talents of the great Broadway clowns, has appeared in Shakespeare and serious new plays but is most beloved for his comedies and musical farces. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and worked as a telemarketer, pollster, and stand‐up comic before acting in stock and dinner theatres. Lane was on the New York stage by 1978 and was first noticed four years later as the wild playwright Roland Maule in Present Laughter (1982). He became a major stage star when he played comic gambler Nathan Detroit in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls, and his other musical triumphs were the conniving slave Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1996) and the shyster theatrical producer Max Bialystock in The Producers (2001). Lane's nonmusical roles include the opera‐loving Mendy in The Lisbon Traviata (1989), the vacationing Sam in Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), the gay costume designer Buzz in Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), the complex television star Max Prince in Laughter on the 23rd Floor (1993), and the curmudgeonly Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner (2000). Ben Brantley in the New York Times described Lane as “droll and exhibitionistic” as Max Bialystock, “with a clarinet speaking voice that segues naturally into song.”