Award-winning children’s casting director who worked on West End shows including Les Mis and Mary Poppins
Jo Hawes, who has died aged 63, was a popular and widely admired figure as the children’s casting director and administrator of choice for some of the West End’s biggest shows.
Raised in Maidenhead, her interest in theatre made itself known as early as age seven when she was “mesmerised” by seeing Eric Porter as Soames in the 1960s television hit The Forsyte Saga. Precociously, she determined that she was going to work in theatre in a yet-to-be-decided backstage role.
Her first job, aged 15, was as a dresser at the Theatre Royal Windsor, where she briefly returned after graduating in stage management from LAMDA.
She found her way to the West End with enviable ease, her first engagement there working on Annie at the Victoria Palace.
In quick succession, she was subsequently involved with On Your Toes, La Cage aux Folles and, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, The Pirates of Penzance. It was there that she met and married Tim Hawes, who was first trumpet in the pit band.
Moving into casting, she specialised in children, overseeing Cameron Mackintosh’s 1995 revival of Oliver! at the London Palladium.
The next decade was spent casting for some of the biggest productions of the period, including Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Sound of Music and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.
In total, Hawes worked on more than 100 shows, most recently on Disney musical Newsies at the Troubadour Wembley Park in 2022 and as children’s administrator for the Mill at Sonning’s revival of Gypsy, which opened this week.
Among tributes paid to her on social media, the Newsies company said it was “devastated” by Hawes’ death. Ryan Heenan, recently seen in the UK tour of Jersey Boys, wrote: “Very sad to hear that Jo Hawes has passed away. So many of us owe our first experience of professional theatre to Jo. A legend of our industry.”
In 2012, she published Children in Theatre, a guide to life on and behind the stage “from the audition to working in professional theatre”.
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In 2020, in response to the forced closures of theatres during the pandemic lockdown, she launched Showstop, a weekend drama school for seven to 17-year-olds to maintain their interest in theatre and “bridge the gap between training and the industry”.
The same year she was honoured with a special recognition Olivier award by the Society of London Theatre. Appropriately enough, she was presented with her award by actor and Mischief Theatre Comedy founder Jonathan Sayer, whom she had cast in Les Misérables as a child actor.
Jo Hawes was born on June 11, 1959, and died from cancer on April 18. She is survived by her husband, Tim, and their three children, all of whom work in theatre.
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