Bernard Telsey is a casting director and co-founder of MCC Theater

MCC Theater

MCC Theater is an Off-Broadway theater company located in New York City, founded in 1986 by artistic directors Robert LuPone and Bernard Telsey along with six graduates of the New York University drama department, including Jana Herzen...

. In the 1980s, he began working for Simon & Kumin Casting as an assistant, then a casting director at Risa Bramon & Billy Hopkins Casting. Shows his company has cast include (Broadway) Rent

Rent (musical)

Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...

, Wicked

Wicked (musical)

Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...

, In the Heights

In the Heights

In the Heights is a musical with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. The story explores three days in the characters' lives in the New York City Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights....

, South Pacific

South Pacific (musical)

South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...

, Hairspray

Hairspray (musical)

Hairspray is a musical with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, based on the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues...

, Equus

Equus (play)

Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....

, Legally Blonde

Legally Blonde (musical)

Legally Blonde is a musical with music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin and book by Heather Hach. The story is based on the novel Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown and the 2001 film of the same name. It tells the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who enrolls at Harvard Law School to...

, A Catered Affair

A Catered Affair

A Catered Affair is a musical with a book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by John Bucchino. It is based on both the 1956 film The Catered Affair written by Gore Vidal and the original 1955 teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky, set in 1953 in the Bronx...

, The Homecoming

The Homecoming

The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...

, Talk Radio

Talk Radio (play)

Talk Radio is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize-nominated play written by Eric Bogosian, based on a concept by Bogosian and Tad Savinar. It centers around Barry Champlain, a Cleveland-area shock jock, on the eve of his radio show's national syndication....

, November, Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens (musical)

Grey Gardens is an American musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were...

, The Color Purple

The Color Purple (musical)

The Color Purple is a Broadway musical based upon the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It features music and lyrics written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, with a book by Marsha Norman. It ran on Broadway in 2005 and has been touring throughout the US...

, The Rocky Horror Show

The Rocky Horror Show

The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British horror comedy stage musical, which opened in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, produced and directed by Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals"...

, All Shook Up

All Shook Up (musical)

All Shook Up is a jukebox musical with Elvis Presley music, with a book by Joe DiPietro. The story is based on William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.-Production history:...

, Tarzan

Tarzan (musical)

Tarzan: The Musical is based on the Disney film of the same name and the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Music and lyrics are written by Phil Collins, with a book by David Henry Hwang.-Production:...

, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1936 British film produced and directed by George King.-Plot:The film features Tod Slaughter in one of his most famous roles as barber Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd was wrongly sentenced to life in prison. After his release 15 years later, he begins...

, (Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

) reasons to be pretty

Reasons to be pretty

reasons to be pretty is a play by Neil LaBute, his first to be staged on Broadway. The plot centers on four young working class friends and lovers who become increasingly dissatisfied with their dead-end lives and each other...

, 50 Words, Almost an Evening, and De La Guarda. He has cast for several theatre companies including the Atlantic Theatre Company, Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre is a Greater Washington D.C. Area Tony Award–winning regional theater company based in Arlington, Virginia. Its declared mission is "to produce contemporary musicals and plays, reinvent classic musicals, develop new work, and reach its community through engaging educational and...

, Westport Playhouse, New York Theater Workshop, Drama Dept, ACT in San Francisco, La Jolla Playhouse

La Jolla Playhouse

La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...

, McCarter Theatre

McCarter Theatre

McCarter Theatre is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It is one of the most active cultural centers in the nation, offering over 200 performances of theater, dance, music and special events each year...

, Long Wharf Theatre

Long Wharf Theatre

Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared....

, Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage, located in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works...

, and Goodman Theatre

Goodman Theatre

The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...

. Films cast include Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married is a 2008 drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin and Debra Winger. The film was released in the U.S. to select theaters on October 3, 2008. The film opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival. The film also...

, Sex and the City, Across the Universe

Across the Universe (film)

Across the Universe is a musical romantic drama film directed by Julie Taymor, produced by Revolution Studios, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film's plot is centered around songs by The Beatles. It was released in the United States on October 12, 2007. The script is based on an original...

, Dan in Real Life

Dan in Real Life

Dan in Real Life is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Peter Hedges, starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche.-Plot:Dan Burns is a newspaper advice columnist, a widower, and a controlling father to his children Jane, Cara and Lilly in the New Jersey suburbs. His column is in...

, Pieces of April

Pieces of April

Pieces of April is a 2003 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Hedges. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.- Plot :...

, Rent

Rent (film)

Rent is a 2005 American musical drama film directed by Chris Columbus. It is an adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name, in turn based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. The film depicts the lives of several Bohemians and their struggles with sexuality, cross-dressing, drugs, life...

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Rent established Telsey as someone who casts unconventional shows, which got him assigned to cast The Capeman

The Capeman

The Capeman is a musical play written by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott based on the life of Salvador Agrón. The play opened at the Marquis Theatre in 1998 to poor reviews and had an initial run of only 68 performances....

. He is notable for discovering Taye Diggs

Taye Diggs

Scott Leo "Taye" Diggs is an American theatre, film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Broadway musical Rent, the motion picture How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and the television series Private Practice...

, Idina Menzel

Idina Menzel

Idina Kim Menzel is an American actress, singer and songwriter. She is widely known for originating the roles of Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked.-Early life:...

, Anthony Rapp

Anthony Rapp

Anthony Deane Rapp is an American stage and film actor and singer best known for originating the role of Mark Cohen in the Broadway production of Rent in 1996 and later for reprising the role in the film version and the Broadway Tour of Rent in 2009...

, and Jesse L. Martin

Jesse L. Martin

Jesse L. Martin is an American theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for originating the role of Tom Collins in the Broadway theatrical production of Rent, and for his portrayal of NYPD Detective Ed Green on the NBC drama television series Law & Order.-Early life:Martin, the third of...

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Telsey has also served for seven years as the New York Vice-President of the Casting Society of America

Casting Society of America

Founded in Los Angeles, California in 1982, the Casting Society of America is a professional society of about 350 casting directors for film, television, and theatre in Australia, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The society is not to be confused with an industry union. The...

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