With an Emmy Award-winning career behind the scenes
at Channel 56, Royal Oak's Mark Nathanson steps out
from behind the footlights in "Damn Yankees."

The
Devil
Made Him Do It

He will get his first star-
ring role on stage when he
plays the Devil in Damn
Yankees, the hit Broadway
musical of 1954-55,
being presented by the
St. Dunstan's Guild of
Cranbrook, one of
Michigan's oldest com-
munity theaters. The
show will be performed
Friday and Saturday, June
2-3, and Thursday-
Saturday, June 8-10, in
Cranbrook's Outdoor Greek
Theatre, being transformed

Mark Nathanson: 7first got the
acting bug when my parents took
me to see 'Fiddler on the Roof —

BILL CARROLL

Special to the Jewish News

ark Nathanson leads a
double life — award-
winning television pro-
ducer by day, theater
producer/director and budding actor
at night. Not bad for a 36-year-old
whose parents instilled in him a love
for the arts as a youth, and who went
through some of the common stages
of local Jewish show business training.
As a producer for WTVS-TV,
Channel 56, Detroit's public broadcast
station, Nathanson has won four local
Emmy Awards (he's been nominated a
total of 11 times) and keeps the stat-
uettes on the mantle in his Royal Oak
bungalow, where he gives them a fleet-
ing look from time to time.

IOC

into a baseball field.
Nathanson, the son of
Dr. and Mrs. Milton
Nathanson of Southfield,
had his bar mitzvah at
Congregation Shaarey
Zedek and graduated
from Birmingham's Groves High
School before going on to the
University of Michigan to obtain a
bachelor's degree in communications
and theater.
"I first got the acting bug when my
parents took me to see Fiddler on the
Roof" he recalled. "I really learned
from them to love the theater, and I
haven't stopped since." His father still -
is in private practice as an obstetri-
cian-gynecologist, and his mother,
Sandra, owns a gift store.
Nathanson participated in musical
productions at Camp Walden and was
in the chorus of South Pacific per-
formed by Nancy Gurwin's youth the-
ater troupe. While a student at U-M
in the 1980s, he began working as an
intern for Channel 56, and continued
there on a freelance basis while dab-

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5/26

2000