THEATER/FILM WORK

John Ruane began his acting career at The Second City in the mid-1980s, training for two years before going on to write and perform three sketch comedy revues with The Chi-Town Players. He then wrote and performed in a restaurant themed sketch comedy show titled, Comedy On Rye, which drew rave reviews from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. At that time he began to audition for film and television shows, while writing and performing in a short film Comedy On Rye and a half-hour sitcom, Deckinger's Place. Both won the Illinois FilmCam award for creativity. He then wrote, produced and directed a  full-length rock-musical, Southbound, which ran at The Theater Building in the Fall of 1991 and drew rave reviews from five critics, including The Reader, Pioneer Press and Lerner Newspapers. In 1993, he finished writing his next play and was seeking a venue to produce it when the demands of life took hold and all theater and film projects were put on hold until 2019.  He considered trying to produce his play and found a wonderful theater in Oak Park, Illinois, Open Door Theater, where the play titled, Final Audition, would be produced in the Spring of 2021. However, that was cancelled when the theater was forced to close due to audiences staying away due to Covid fears. Moving back to the suburbs north of Atlanta where he and his wife raised their four children, he found a theater where he could produce his play, put together a highly talented professional cast, and the show will go up on September 6 at The Art Place Theatre in Marietta.  Information about the play is available at: www.FinalAudition.net.

​

                                                ACTING IN FILM & TELEVISION

Once freed up in 2019, John also pursued acting work in films and television. He appeared in a few commercials and three films. He was also featured on Chicago PD and Chicago Fire several times, playing a police officer, administrator, detective and bar patron. His credits are detailed on his IMDB page.  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7693434/

 

In addition, he has finished three film scripts which he plans to produce over the next few years.