Hal Prince, Director Behind ‘Phantom’ and ‘Evita,’ Dies at 91

(Bloomberg) -- Hal Prince, a Broadway musical impresario who produced or directed hits including “West Side Story,” “Cabaret” and “The Phantom of the Opera” during a six-decade career, has died. He was 91.

He died Wednesday in Reykjavik, Iceland, according to the New York Times, citing an unnamed spokesman. No cause was given.

Prince was involved with three of the most durable hits on Broadway, as director of “Evita,” which ran 1,567 performances through 1983; producer of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which ran 3,242 performances through 1972; and director of “The Phantom of the Opera,” which opened at the Majestic Theater in 1988 and had run for 10,400 performances as of its 25th anniversary in 2013.

During an 11-year span starting in 1970, he and composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim collaborated on six musicals including “Follies,” “A Little Night Music,” and “Sweeney Todd.” Another collaboration -- with British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber -- led to 1979’s “Evita” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”

All told, Prince collected 21 Tony Awards -- more than anyone else -- including one in 2006 for lifetime achievement.

Born and reared in New York City, Prince said he got the theater bug at age 8 the way some kids get hooked on sports. At 20, he talked his way into an apprenticeship with famed producer-director-playwright George Abbott, who died in 1995.

Life Saver

“I suspected that, if I didn’t make a life in the theater, I wouldn’t have a life -- literally,” Prince said in a 1998 talk at Lincoln Center Theater.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” a lasting hit on London’s West End and in New York on Broadway, took root in 1985 when Lloyd Webber told Prince he wanted to make a musical from French novelist Gaston Leroux’s 1911 story about a grotesque yet romantic madman who haunts the Paris Opera.

“Usually, when the idea for a new musical arises, I immediately think of a number of reasons not to do it, why it won’t work,” Prince later wrote. “On this occasion, without hesitation, I said, ‘I must be a part of it.’”

The show won seven Tony Awards, including best musical and best director, in its inaugural Broadway season. At one point, 14 productions played simultaneously around the world, Prince said.

Sondheim’s ‘Follies’

Prince told the Spokane Spokesman Review in 2005 that of all his shows, Sondheim’s “Follies” (1971) -- about the emotional reunion of former dancers and the stage-door Johnnies they married -- best expressed his own taste: “It was an artistic success and is certainly known, but it never made any money for anybody.”

But he long resisted matching up his productions and naming favorites. “I don’t compare shows,” he said in a 2006 interview. “It’s very simple. I don’t live in the past.”

Harold Smith Prince was born Jan. 30, 1928, a descendant of German-American Jews who settled in the U.S. early in the 19th century. His father, Milton, worked as a stockbroker.
Theater took hold of him at a young age.

“On Saturdays, I was taken to the theater, not the ballpark,” he said, according to a 1995 New Yorker article. “Suddenly I was 12, and I went alone. I was weaned on the second balcony.”

In 1948, Prince earned a bachelors in English from the University of Pennsylvania. He was drafted in 1950 and served in the U.S. Army in Germany.

He began working on Broadway and, in 1953, got a break when Abbott took him on as an assistant on “Wonderful Town.” It was a six-month job at no pay, but Prince proved a quick learner.

Pulitzer Prize

He formed a partnership with Robert Griffith, Abbott’s longtime stage manager, and along with Frederick Brisson, they produced “The Pajama Game” (1954) and “Damn Yankees” (1955). Both shows were directed by Abbott and both won Tonys for best musical.

For “West Side Story” in 1957, Prince and Griffith teamed with Sondheim, Prince’s close friend since the late 1940s, who wrote the lyrics to music by Leonard Bernstein.

Abbott, Prince and Griffith worked together again on 1959’s “Fiorello!”. The musical, about the reformist New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It established Prince’s relationship with the team of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, who later wrote “Cabaret” and “Chicago.”

Griffith died in 1961 at age 54, a devastating blow to Prince.

Sondheim and Prince launched their hugely successful artistic collaboration with “Company” (1970), a “concept” musical that emphasized character over plot.

Broadway Flops

They parted ways professionally after “Merrily We Roll Along,” a 1981 flop that closed after 16 performances. It was part of a difficult eight-year period for Prince.

Between the openings of “Evita” and “The Phantom of the Opera, he produced some of Broadway’s biggest failures. They included the musicals “A Doll’s Life” and “Grind,” and plays “End of the World” and “Play Memory.”

Prince and Sondheim finally rejoined forces in 2003 with “Bounce,” a musical about brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner and their fearless journeys across early 20th century America. Under Prince’s direction, the show premiered in Chicago and Washington.

In the late 1950s, Prince also produced movie adaptations of “The Pajama Game” and “Damn Yankees.” In 1978, he directed the adaptation of “A Little Night Music.”

He served six years on the council that advises the National Endowment for the Arts. President Bill Clinton awarded him a National Medal of Arts in 2000.

In 1962, Prince married Judith Chaplin, the daughter of film composer Saul Chaplin. Their daughter, Daisy, became a theater director, and their son, Charles, is a professional orchestra conductor.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Arnold in Washington at larnold4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Nancy Moran, Steven Gittelson

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