Veteran director Mark Brokaw, beloved for his work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theaters, has passed away.
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Brokaw died Sunday from an unspecified cancer at the age of 66, according to Deadline.
The Practice star Camryn Manheim also announced his death on social media.
“My beautiful friend Mark Brokaw lost his battle with cancer this morning,” she wrote on Sunday alongside two photos of the director, one featuring the two together. “Today, we lost a beautiful, gifted, beloved friend, artist, husband, and son. The entire theater community is grieving today. I will miss him terribly.”
Brokaw grew up in Illinois and graduated from Yale Drama School, according to Broadway World. He received a Drama League fellowship in New York and later worked as an assistant director to Carole Rothman at Second Stage Theater on Tina Howe’s Coastal Disturbances in 1987.
In 1988, he directed Lanford Wilson’s The Rimers of Eldritch and Lynda Barry’s The Good Times Are Killing Me at Second Stage, the latter solidifying his reputation.
Through the 90s, Brokaw directed several acclaimed plays from the 1990s, including Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth (1996), Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive (1997), and Douglas Carter Beane’s As Bees in Honey Drown (1997).
Frequent Collaborator Nicky Silver Pays Tribute to Mark Brokaw
Brokaw collaborated with many playwrights, directing Lonergan’s Lobby Hero, Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home and The Baltimore Waltz, five plays by Nicky Silver, including Pterodactyls and The Lyons, and Lucas’s Reckless and The Dying Gaul.
“We worked together five times,” Silver wrote on X. “He was a brilliant director and my dear friend. Funny, smart, kind, generous, and the epitome of class. He loved the theater, and I loved him. The world feels very different to me today, emptier and sadder.”
Brokaw also directed productions at top Off-Broadway theaters, including Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theatre, The New Group, Lincoln Center Theater, The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Signature Theatre, and Roundabout Theatre.
Meanwhile on Broadway, Brokaw directed notable productions including Reckless (2004), The Constant Wife (2005), Cry-Baby (2007), After Miss Julie (2009), The Lyons (2012), Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella (2013), Heisenberg (2016) and a 2022 revival of How I Learned to Drive with Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse.
Brokaw directed productions at major regional theatres like the Guthrie, Seattle Rep, and Steppenwolf, as well as international venues including London’s Donmar Warehouse and the Sydney Opera House.
He also tried his hand at film directing in 2007, helming the film Spinning into Butter starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
Mark Brokaw also served as VP and executive board member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, President of its Foundation, Artistic Director of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre (2009-17), and associate artist at Roundabout Theatre..
Brokaw is survived by his husband of 36 years, Andrew Farber.