Marc Routh is a theatrical producer, entrepreneur and professor. Background Routh was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and raised in nearby Liberty Township. He graduated from Liberty High School in 1980. As a child he performed in musicals in summer stock, community theatre, and children's theatre productions, including roles in Mame, Gypsy, Bye, Bye, Birdie, Oliver, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and A Christmas Carol. He won a scholarship to a musical theatre program at Kent State University. With acting partner Judith Sewickley, he placed 7th in an Ohio State duet acting competition. Routh served as a management assistant under mentor Bentley Lenhoff at the Youngstown Playhouse and took classes at Youngstown State University while attending high school. His college years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also included positions as company manager and director of Audience Development for PlayMakers Repertory Company, and during the summers he served as administrative assistant for Horse Cave Theatre in Horse Cave, Kentucky, and as the company manager and administrative assistant under Jean Passanante and Lloyd Richards for the O’Neill Theater Center in New York and Connecticut. Early career He began his career in New York in 1984 as a management assistant for Richard Horner and Lynne Stuart, working on productions of Kennedy at Colonus and Lady Day, followed by a year working for publicist Milly Schoenbaum in the office of producer Morton Gottlieb, where the productions he worked on included the original production of Little Shop of Horrors, which he would later produce in its Broadway premiere. It was during his work as the press agent for the original off-Broadway production of Orphans at the Westside Arts Theatre that he first met Richard Frankel. Frankel was producing Penn & Teller which was playing in the downstairs theatre and Orphans was playing in the upstairs theatre. Their first meeting was to negotiate lobby space since Penn & Teller had opened first and has wallpapered the shared lobby with Penn & Teller posters. Routh began working with Frankel as an assistant later that year, subsequently joining Frankel as a manager with Richard Frankel Productions and eventually as a producing partner with Frankel, Thomas Viertel, and Steven Baruch. Broadway and Off-Broadway career Routh's first producing credit was Three Ways Home by Casey Kurtti in 1988, starring Mary McDonnell, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Malcolm Jamal-Warner, for which he served as executive producer. Additional off Broadway