A fixture on Lincoln Avenue, Zacek was born and raised in Pilsen, not far from Cook County Jail. “My father was an aspiring artist, and he wanted to go to the Art Institute, but my grandfather thought he should do something more practical, so he became a machinist. He was the head machinist at a printing firm. In many ways I’m vicariously living out my father’s artistic dreams.”
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In 1954 he started at St. Rita’s, a conservative high school with a strong emphasis on sports, particularly football. The kids who dared to embrace art were considered rebels. Zacek says he fell into no particular camp. “I wasn’t a big rebel and I wasn’t a jock. I went out for football but I think I lasted mainly a day. I was just going to school, trying to keep my head out of water.”
“I was still searching for my ultimate vocation. Of course I knew it would be in theater, but I didn’t want it to be a stepping-stone to New York or commercials or whatever. I very much wanted my life to be about Chicago theater. There was, and is, a definite Chicago sensibility about rehearsing and performing. I remember being in a cafeteria at Northwestern many years ago and having a vivid daydream of starting my own theater in Chicago.”
“We’re very hands-on, very personal,” says McVay. “People say, ‘How do you build a theater company?’ and it starts with the body of work. But there’s also a lot of personal talking to people, knowing the customer, standing in the lobby, greeting people, shaking hands. We’re very intimate. We’ve done so many coffee parties where Dennis or [associate artistic director] Sandy [Shinner] will take some actors and do a reading and then they talk about subscriptions or donations. You keep it small, you keep it real.”
