Disney Television Studios Ups Stephanie Levinson, Jonathan Bluman, Lindsey Kasabian to Lead Casting Roles

Joe Otterson

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Disney Television Studios has announced three new leaders in its casting departments.

Senior vice president Stephanie Levinson has been elevated to lead casting at 20th Century Fox Television; vice president Jonathan Bluman will run casting for ABC Studios; and vice president Lindsey Kasabian will oversee the team for Fox 21 Television Studios. All three will report to Sharon Klein, executive vice president of casting for Disney Television Studios and FX Entertainment. The three join the FX’s Michael Katcher in reporting to Klein.

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Read Klein’s full statement on the three promotions below.

Levinson recently served as the studio’s primary casting executive on series including NBC’s “This Is Us,” ABC’s “Modern Family,” and FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.” She was integral in bringing Sterling K. Brown in for “This Is Us” after seeing dailies from his performance as “Christopher Darden” on “The People v. O.J. Simpsons: American Crime Story.” She also helped land Jenna Dewan in the upcoming Netflix series “Soundtrack” as well as cast Dewan in a recurring role on “The Resident.” She joined 20th TV directly upon graduating college, rising to the role of senior vice president.

Bluman most recently served as vice president of talent and casting for the ABC Entertainment/ABC Studios casting department. In that role, he worked on a number of projects including ABC’s “The Rookie,” “Dollface” for Hulu starring Kat Dennings, Brenda Song, Shay Mitchell and Esther Povitsky and “The Wilds” for Amazon. Before joining ABC, Bluman was a talent agent at Endeavor/WME in Los Angeles from 2005 to 2016. He started as an agent in the talent department at Endeavor in 2005 and continued with the agency when it merged with William Morris in 2009. During this time, he represented a variety of actors including Mahershala Ali, Maya Rudolph, Omar Epps, Adrianne Palicki, Benjamin Bratt, Cheryl Hines, and Melissa Rauch. Prior to joining Endeavor, he was a talent agent at Paradigm Agency in both Los Angeles and New York.

Kasabian has served as the principal casting executive on Showtime’s hit “Homeland.” She also covers Nat Geo’s scripted series “Genius” and “The Hot Zone,” as well as the upcoming “Barkskins” with David Thewlis. She oversaw the casting of FX’s “Fosse/Verdon” and “Pose,” both of whom just secured Emmy wins for their leads Michelle Williams and Billy Porter respectively. She’s currently working on FX’s “The Old Man” with Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow and Amy Brenneman. She originally joined 20th TV in 2006 as an assistant.

Statement from Sharon Klein:

“With the volume of programming we are producing and as my responsibilities have expanded, it became clear that we needed seasoned casting executives leading our efforts at each studio. Stephanie was the first person I thought of to take on a leadership role in this new casting structure” Klein said. “She’s a fantastic executive with superb taste, poise and judgement and has earned the respect and admiration of everyone from showrunners to agents to executives. I’ve known Jonathan since his days in NY as an agent, and he brings a lot of the skills from his former career to this role, from deal making to talent relations. He has done great work for ABC for the past three years for both network and studio, so he was the perfect choice for this new studio role.
“Lindsey is another protégé of mine who has been the point person for Fox 21 for several years and was more than ready for this additional responsibility. She commands respect and has a great eye for not just marquis talent but for the actor coming up who is poised to break out. Together with Michael Katcher at FX, they form a casting dream team of which I feel extraordinarily lucky and proud to have assembled.”

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