- Her older sister Harriet, gained recognition for having helped persuade Charles Schulz to add a black character to his Peanuts strip.
- From 2000 to 2011, she was known for her recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Judge Lena Petrovsky.
- In 1961 she made her Broadway debut in 'Becket' before playing Tzeitel in Harold Prince's production of 'Fiddler on the Roof'. She left the cast of Fiddler on the Roof before the end of its tour to take care of her two small children, but Harold Prince gave her the opportunity to become involved in casting with a more flexible schedule.
- Joanna was an actress, master Chekhov teacher, and former casting director for Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Bernardo Bertolucci, and James Ivory.
- Merlin graduated from UCLA and later studied under Michael Chekhov, learning his world-renowned acting technique. She was described as the last student of Chekhov who was still alive and teaching.
- As an actress, she appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: The Ten Commandments (1956), All That Jazz (1979), The Killing Fields (1984). As a casting director, she contributed with the Oscar winning The Last Emperor (1987).
- Merlin first acted on stage at age 11, joining a community theatre production, Too Many Marys.
- " Company" was the first musical for which Merlin served as the casting director.
- She appeared in the NBC crime drama Law & Order in 1992 as a defense attorney. Like many actors from that show, she went on to play other characters in the Law & Order franchise - another defense attorney in the original show and a more recurring role as Judge Lena Petrovsky, a judge who was very stern, by-the-book, and scolded or sanctioned, at various times, ADAs Casey Novak (Diane Neal) and Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March) and then-Det., now-Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), in its first spin-off Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In the latter role, she appeared in every season between the years 2000 and 2011.
- She was also in charge of casting for such plays as Follies, Evita and Sweeney Todd.
- Merlin got her start on the big screen as Jethro's (Eduard Franz) daughter in "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and also appeared in small roles in the movies "Hester Street" and "All That Jazz.".
- In 1960, Merlin appeared in the Broadway production of "A Far Country," starring Kim Stanley, and then landed her breakthrough role as Tzeitel - one of Tevye's (Zero Mostel) daughters, along with Hodel and Chava - in "Fiddler on the Roof," where she sang "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," one of the show's most famous songs.
- She wrote two acting guides and was a faculty member of New York University's graduate acting program.
- She was an American actress and casting director who worked with Stephen Sondheim and starred in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof.
- She produced, co-wrote and performed in an award winning one-woman short film, Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn.
- Merlin taught in New York University's graduate acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts.
- She is a co-founder of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and was a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee.
- In 1999, she founded the Michael Chekhov Association where she taught acting workshops.
- In 1986, she served as casting director for John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China.
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