Prince, Harold, 1928-

Harold Prince (b. 1928), is a producer and director of theater, film and opera, but is best known for his work on Broadway musicals. Prince, who is commonly known as Hal Prince, began his career in 1948 as an assistant in the office of Broadway director and producer George Abbott. During his early years with Abbott, he made valuable connections with Robert E. Griffith, who would later become his producing partner and Ruth Mitchell, who would be his longtime assistant and production supervisor. Griffith and Prince scored a huge success in their first producing project, The Pajama Game (1954) and had many subsequent Broadway hits until Griffith's death in 1961. Prince began directing with the play, A Family Affair (1962). He has gone on to have a notably prolific career, directing and/or producing many landmark Broadway musicals, including Cabaret (1966), West Side Story (1957), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Follies (1972), Evita (1979) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) and The Phantom of the Opera (1987). Principal collaborators on musical theater productions include the songwriters Stephen Sondheim; Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick; John Kander and Fred Ebb; Larry Grossman; Betty Comden and Adolph Green; and Andrew Lloyd Webber. In addition to musicals and plays, Prince also has directed operas and two feature films, and appeared in many documentaries and tributes; in 1974 he published an autobiography, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre.

From the guide to the Harold Prince scores, 1955-1983, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)

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