Charlotte Harmon, a former Back Stage editor, summer stock producer, and radio commentator, died at her Manhattan home Sunday — exactly two years after the death of her husband, longtime Broadway press agent Lewis Harmon. Mrs. Harmon was 96.
Using her maiden name, Charlotte Buchwald, Harmon worked as a commentator for WMAC and WNEW in New York. From 1946-50 she served as producer-director of Chapel Playhouse in Guilford, Conn., where three of her plays were produced: Sex Is Out, Strawberries in January, and You Have to Be Crazy; from 1951-58, she ran Clinton (Conn.) Playhouse, where her play That Foolish Age was staged.
From 1961-76, Harmon served as Back Stage's editor for theatre, which in those days received the lion's share of the newspaper's coverage. According to Sherry Eaker, the editor-at-large and former editor in chief, Harmon's greatest contribution was going out into the theatre community to solicit casting notices, a major source of the paper's revenue. "Right now Back Stage has casting calls coming to us," Eaker said. "When
Charlotte began, people didn't know to bring casting notices in.... She basically formulated the plan we have now."
Harmon also wrote two books: How to Break Into Theatre (1961) and Broadway in a Barn (1957).
Harmon was married for 67 years to Lewis Harmon, who died in 2005, also on July 29. Mr. Harmon's career as a press agent on Broadway ran for more than four decades and included such productions as All My Sons, West Side Story, Fiorello!, and Sweet Bird of Youth. Their daughter, the actor Jill Harmon Broyles, survives her, as do two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.