Mark Bruce Rosin was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. He received his B.A. in English Language and Literature from University of Chicago where he was feature editor of the campus newspaper, ...Show More
Mark Bruce Rosin was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. He received his B.A. in English Language and Literature from University of Chicago where he was feature editor of the campus newspaper, the Maroon, and directed The Changeling and The Importance of Being Earnest for University Theatre. He received an M.A. in English Language and Literature from Yale University, and studied at the Yale Drama School with legendary Shakespearean scholar Jan Kott and theatre director Gordon Rogoff.While still at Yale, Mark sold a short story to Harper's Bazaar and soon joined the magazine's staff as associate literary editor before becoming a contributing editor, writing celebrity interviews and articles on subjects ranging from psychology to contemporary art. Simultaneously, he was brought in as co-director of the New York production of the rock musical Stomp at the Public Theatre. After working with director Alex Grasshoff on a documentary film in Toronto, Mark was brought to Los Angeles by Grasshoff to write a screen adaptation of Ibsen's Wild Duck, which was never produced.Mark continued writing screenplays, freelanced as a story editor, and became a program development executive at CBS, West Coast, where he was part of the team that oversaw the development and production of comedy and drama pilots. He left CBS to head television and film development for Talent Associates, West Coast.For Michael Pressman, his colleague at Talent Associates, Mark wrote the story for Dynamite Women, which morphed into The Great Texas Dynamite Chase and was the springboard for the film that Michael directed for Roger Corman. Next, Mark rewrote the script for Chatterbox, directed by Tom de Simone,based on Tom's idea about a woman with a talking and singing vagina with an assertive personality.Mark was lured back to the world of publishing by Parents magazine, which brought him to New York where he became the magazine's senior editor and special projects editor. While writing and editing articles about parenting and child psychology by day, Mark also worked with the Ensemble Studio Theatre, which did successful workshop productions of his play Salt Air and his and Barry Glasser's play Twice Removed. Mark also was an uncredited "show doctor" for musicals on Broadway and off-off Broadway.Mark left Parents to write Stepfathering for Simon & Schuster. In this pioneering book about stepfathering, Mark, who became a stepfather when he married actress Cynthia Hoppenfeld and became stepfather of her sons Kevin and Timothy Barry, wrote about his own experience and the experiences of over 50 stepfathers all over America.With the publication of Stepfathering, Mark moved back to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting and continue his work in publishing. While authoring, coauthoring, and editing nonfiction and fiction for publishers including Times-Random House, Bantam, and St. Martin's Press, he wrote screenplays for Paramount Pictures and for Jodie Foster for her company, Egg Pictures, and did uncredited rewrites for Columbia Pictures and Savoy Pictures. He has written pilot scripts for HBO and Castle Rock, and, with Barry Glasser, for Showtime. He also served as a consultant to MediaCorp Studios in Singapore and as a judge for the Singapore Film Commission. He wrote the script and is a producer of the film 55 Steps, based on a true story of a civil rights case that helped to improve America's mental health system. 55 Steps is directed by Bille August and stars Hilary Swank and Helena Bonham Carter. It will be released in 2017.Mark and Cynthia live in Los Angeles. Kevin and his family live in Hermosa Beach, California, and Timothy and his family live in New York. Hide
