Stephen Hanan Kaplan (January 7, 1947 – April 3, 2025), known professionally as Stephen Mo Hanan, was an American actor and

street performer Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is pr ...

. He was known for playing the three roles of Bustopher Jones,

Asparagus Asparagus (''Asparagus officinalis'') is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus (genus), Asparagus'' native to Eurasia. Widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. Description ...

and Growltiger in the Broadway play ''

Cats The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

'', for which he was nominated for a

Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actors for quality featured roles in a musi ...

Background

Stephen Hanan Kaplan was born in Washington, D.C., on January 7, 1947, he attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, graduating in 1968. One of his classmates was television writer

John Weidman John Weidman (born September 25, 1946) is an American librettist and television writer for ''Sesame Street''. He has worked on stage musicals with Stephen Sondheim and Susan Stroman. Career Weidman was born in New York City and grew up in Westport ...

, who gave him the nickname "Mo". After a brief period in New York, he lived in a commune in San Francisco in the 1970s, where he sang as a busker, and was once praised for his singing by

Luciano Pavarotti Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerou ...

outside the

War Memorial Opera House The War Memorial Opera House is an opera house in San Francisco, California, United States, located on the western side of Van Ness Avenue across from the west side/rear facade of the San Francisco City Hall. It is part of the San Francisco W ...

Career

Upon returning to New York at the end of the decade, he began working in professional theatre, adopting the stage name "Stephen Mo Hanan" because another actor was registered under the name "Stephen Kaplan". He appeared in several

New York Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Park (or Free Shakespeare in the Park) is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at the Delacorte Theater, an open-air theater in New York City's Central Park. The theater and the productions are ...

productions, and made his Broadway debut as Samuel in the 1981 production of ''

The Pirates of Penzance ''The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 3 ...

''. The next year, he portrayed Bustopher Jones, Asparagus, and Growltiger when ''

'' premiered on Broadway. He was nominated for the

. He kept a diary during the show's production and published it in 2002 under the title ''A Cat's Diary''. Hanan appeared on stage in the United States and the United Kingdom. He and Jay Berkow wrote ''Jolson & Co.'', a play about

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and ...

, and he portrayed Jolson for its 1999

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

premiere. In 2006, he returned to ''The Pirates of Penzance'' when he played Major-General Stanley in a

Folksbiene The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, commonly known as NYTF, is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish theater, Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous sup ...

production.

Personal life and death

Hanan lived in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

with his husband, Gary Widlund. He died at his home from a heart attack on April 3, 2025, at the age of 78. Hanan, who identified as a

faerie Fairyland (Early Modern English: ''Faerie''; (Scottish mythology; cf. (Norse mythology)) in English and Scottish folklore is the fabulous land or abode of fairies or ''fays''. Old French (Early Modern English ) referred to an illusion or enchan ...

, had suffered from a heart condition for years before his death.Mountaine, "Remembering Mo." '' RFD'', Number 202, Summer 2025, pages 60-62.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanan, Stephen Mo 1947 births 2025 deaths 20th-century American LGBTQ people 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American male actors 21st-century American memoirists American male film actors American male musical theatre actors American male stage actors Harvard College alumni LGBTQ people from Washington, D.C. Male actors from Washington, D.C. Singers from San Francisco Singers from Washington, D.C. 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights