John S. Lyons

John Lyons began his career in the theater as casting director for the Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwrights Horizon, where he assembled such shows as the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Sunday in the Park With George" (1984) by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. He received his first feature "casting" credit for "King Kong Lives" (1986) and then embarked on a long association with Joel and Ethan Coen, serving as casting director on "Raising Arizona" (1987). Although he had cast seven films for the Coens by 1998, Lyons also enjoyed multiple film casting collaborations with directors Frank Oz ("Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" 1988 and "House Sitter" 1992, both with Steve Martin), Bernard Rose ("Paperhouse" 1988 and "Chicago Joe and the Showgirl" 1990), Lapine ("Impromptu" 1991 and "Life With Mikey" 1993) and Andrew Bergman ("It Could Happen to You" 1994 and "Striptease" 1996). He branched into feature producing with Paul Thomas Anderson's directing debut "Hard Eight" (1996) and then shared duties (with Joanne Sellar and Lloyd Levin) on Anderson's "Boogie Nights" (1997). Lapine also worked as a casting director for PBS' "American Playhouse" productions of "The Rise and Fall of Daniel Rocket" (1986) and "Armistead Maupin's 'Tales of the City'" (1994), in addition to producing the TV version of Claudia Shear's one woman show "Blown Sideways Through Life" (1996).