Bertrand Castelli

Bertrand Castelli (December 3, 1929, Salon-de-Provence – August 1, 2008) was a French producer, director, lighting designer, choreographer, painter and writer best known as the executive producer of many productions of the rock musical Hair in partnership with the show's main producers Michael Butler and Annie Fargue. Castelli was instrumental in helping the show reach Broadway and would later lead the effort to introduce Hair to a worldwide theatre audience. Beginning as an innovative lighting designer for ballet and opera, Castelli tried screenwriting, playwriting, choreographing and directing before becoming a producer of Hair in New York and then masterminding its many international productions. In later years, he became the artist in residence of a Mexican resort Belmond Maroma, where he created paintings for every room in the resort. Castelli was born in Salon-de-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, of Corsican heritage. During World War II, he got a job operating the projector at a cinema. Castelli and his friends began to paint and to write and perform plays, operas and ballets to cast aside the gloom of Nazi-occupied Paris. At the age of 17, after the war, he toured Germany operating the lights for a small circus, learning theatre arts and developing innovative lighting techniques. Castelli began his professional artistic career in France working for ballet and opera companies in Paris, starting with lighting design. To finance his ambitions to create a serious bal…