Director Mark Brokaw Dies of Cancer

Acclaimed director Mark Brokaw, whose visionary work spanned Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theaters across the United States and abroad, has passed away after a battle with cancer. 

Brokaw was raised in Aledo, Illinois, and graduated from the Yale School of Drama. He received a Drama League fellowship and was initially given directing work through Carole Rothman and Robyn Goodman, the artistic heads of Second Stage Theatre.

He directed many Off-Broadway productions, and his New York work included premieres by Lynda Barry (The Good Times Are Killing Me), Douglas Carter Beane (As Bees in Honey Drown), Neal Bell, Eric Bogosian, Keith Bunin, Charles Busch, Kevin Elyot, Lisa Kron (2.5 Minute Ride), Lisa Loomer, Kenneth Lonergan (This Is Our Youth, Lobby Hero), Craig Lucas (Dying Gaul), Eduardo Machado, Patrick Marber (After Miss Julie), Robert Schenkkan, Nicky Silver, Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive, Long X-Mas Ride Home), and Wendy Wasserstein. He directed in New York at Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theatre, The New Group, Second Stage Theatre, Lincoln Center, New York Shakespeare Festival/The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Signature Theatre, and the Roundabout Theatre. He spent five seasons with the Young Playwrights Festival (1989–1995) and was a member of the Drama Dept. theatre company.

In regional theater, he directed at the Guthrie (Racing Demon in 1997-98; A Month in the Country in 1998-99), Seattle Repertory Theatre (The Lisbon Traviata, 1991; The Good Times Are Killing Me, 1992), Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Hartford Stage, South Coast Repertory, Huntington, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the O’Neill Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Berkeley Rep, Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, and New York Stage and Film. He directed A Little Night Musicfor the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration in 2002.

On Broadway, he directed Reckless (2004), The Constant Wife (2005), the musical Cry-Baby (2007), After Miss Julie(2009), The Lyons (2012), the musical Cinderella (2013), and Heisenberg (2016).

His work was also seen at London’s Donmar Warehouse and the Menier Chocolate Factory, Dublin’s Gate Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House.

He directed the film Spinning into Butter, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Beau Bridges, and Miranda Richardson, in 2006.

Brokaw served as a past vice president and a member of the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, as well as President of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. He was the Artistic Director of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre from 2009 to 2017 and was an associate artist of the Roundabout Theatre.