Larry Neumann Jr., a moody and gritty Chicago actor who is widely regarded as typical, died Wednesday at the age of 62. His death was announced by his ex-wife, Sandy Borgram, who was 18 years old.
Borgram said Neumann had collapsed and died at his home on the South Shore. Probably due to complications from type 1 diabetes.
“Larry was the hardest-working man I’ve ever known,” Borgram said in an interview about her love for her ex-husband and her ferocious love for the whole family. “He was always lucky to be able to live his life on his own terms.”
Neumann’s contribution to the Chicago Theater dates back decades and has no obvious companions. Although he was primarily known as an actor, he was also the managing director of the renowned Door Theater Company, an influential off-loop company, for some time.
Later on, he played a natural paternal role with young actors, often acknowledging himself as “Uncle Ra”. He shared many of his war stories from the Off-Loop Theater at a post-show bar gathering, at least before the pandemic.
His work here dates back to the mid-1980s when Neumann worked at Blind Parrot Productions and New Crime Productions in the back room of the North Broadway Amethyst Grill and Tavern. In 1986, Neuman played the title role in Charles Malowitz’s “Artaud at Rodez,” injecting a syringe on stage and finally nailing it to a casket. Witnesses remembered that he was thrilled with a scream on the cover as the audience exited the exit.
By 1988, he had played Iago in the production of the Chicago Shakespeare Company of “Othello” on the other side of Desdemona in Shira Piven.
An important role over the years also included the one-man show “Judgment” seen at Famous Door in 1995. Month. As Shakespeare’s tragedy, or memorably, as a mere chestnut seller (with problems) in the production of the annual Goodman Theater “Christmas Carols,” he went through the stages of psychological intensity. Also matched.
And in 1996, he played the Dalai Lama in Eric Obermeyer’s soliloquy “The Dalai Lama is 3 to 4”, filled with bald putty and saffron robes. Perhaps most notable was the production of “They All Fall Down” at the Lookingglass Theater in 2001, his performance as Chicago photographer Richard Nickel, who is obsessed with preserving stunning architecture.
According to public records, Neuman was born in September 1959 and grew up in and around Chicago.
In an off-loop world dominated by young actors looking ahead to what’s ahead, Neuman was something unusual. Thus, given his affinity for curmudgeons and his focus on his work even at the expense of his personal career development, Neumann worked constantly. Even his comic turn, like Will Kahn’s “Hellcab,” was as tragic as he found in Famous Door’s ingenious “ghetto.”
He was a kind of person in every explanation. And the candidate for the Chicago actor who performed the most off-loop show ever.
“There were times when I didn’t think there was a theater in Chicago where Larry wasn’t working,” said Mark Grapee, former artistic director of Famous Door. “He was part of the cloth and part of the landscape. He was also a true original. The theater had been dark for quite some time, but when he came back, some of the major players Will go missing. “
Survivors include Neumann’s mother, Patty, and three brothers, Cindy, Tim, and Brian.
Plans for the memorial ceremony are pending, according to Grapee.
Chris Jones is a tribune critic.