TV producer Joan Stein dies at 59

Joan Stein, a Tony award winning theater and television producer who helped launch some long-term in Los Angeles theater productions, including "Love Letters", "Forever" Plaid Steve Martin and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" is dead. He was 59 years.

Stein died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. A resident of Hollywood, was diagnosed four weeks ago with a rare type of cancer that affects the appendix, said her husband, Ted Weiant.

In 1999, Stein won a Tony Award as a producer of "Side Man" Broadway play, a drama set in the jazz world after the war. His other recent credits include producing the Broadway musical "Catch Me If You Can" and "9 to 5" and the 2002 revival of "The Elephant Man".

Stein and his producer partner, Susan Dietz, directed the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills for 10 years. His first success was A.R. Gurney "Love Letters", which opened in 1990, and a rotating cast of celebrities. While Canon, Stein Laird has also produced "Forever Plaid" and Joel Paley and Marvin Stuart Ross musical parody of "ruthless!"

Stein left the Canon in 2000 to pursue a career in television and the theater closed in 2004.

"The enjoyment and we did a good job. She was a sister to me these 10 years," said Dietz.

Stein was also producer of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which opened in 1994 at the Westwood Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse now. Martin's work, which establishes a link between the artist and Albert Einstein at a bar in Paris, became a hit and ran over 300 performances.

"People say, 'You can not earn a living theater in Los Angeles,'" Stein told the Times in 1995 amid the success, "Picasso." 'Good', all dressed up in my office, driving a car, pay the rent. They are making a living in theater. "

After leaving the Canon Theatre, Stein created a television production company with Martin have collaborated on several projects.

Stein recent theater projects such as "Motherhood Out Loud", which took place in the primary stages of New York and the Geffen Playhouse in 2011 with the title "In the words of the Mother." He also produced "standing for the ceremony," a series of works on gay marriage, which took place in Largo Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles.

Her stage career includes a stint as the CEO of Berkshire Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.

Stein was born June 7, 1953 in New York. He graduated from State University of New York at Albany, after majoring in English.