Mark Simon, a longtime casting director for stage productions on Broadway and at Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, died July 16 in Los Angeles. He was 70.
His death was confirmed by Broadway publicist Adrian Bryan-Brown.
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Launching his theater career as assistant general manager at Manhattan Theatre Club, Simon subsequently worked at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater and for the Off-Off Broadway Alliance, now known as ART-NY.
Simon was a co-producer of the 1986 revival of Joe Orton’s Loot, directed by John Tillinger. The production started at the Manhattan Theatre Club Off Broadway and subsequently transferred to Broadway’s Music Box Theater with a cast including Zoë Wanamaker, Zeljko Ivanek and, in his Broadway debut, Alec Baldwin.
As the founder of Mark Simon Casting and, before that, as a casting director at Johnson/Liff & Associates, Binder Casting and Livent, Simon worked on such Broadway and Off Broadway productions as The Sweet Smell of Success and Ragtime. He was a casting director for New York City Opera and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and he collaborated with playwright and composer Jason Robert Brown several times, including on the original productions of Parade, 13, The Last Five Years, and Honeymoon in Vegas.
Simon counted his collaborations casting for director Harold Prince on Parade, Showboat, Candide, Love Musik and Hollywood Arms among his career highlights.
After relocating to Los Angeles, Simon became a casting director for the city’s Center Theatre Group, during which time he won a Casting Society of America Artois Award for the CTG’s Mark Taper Forum production of Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (he also won the award for Ragtime).
Simon worked for at CTG until his retirement. In L.A., he lived in housing provided by The Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund), and tribute donations can be made to the Fund in his memory.
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