Broadway General Manager Alan Wasser Passes Away

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that longtime general manager of Broadway, Alan Wasser passed away yesterday, April 14. Wasser was the recipient of a Special Tony Awards Honor in 2017 and general manager of the Tony Awards from 2009 to 2012.

Wasser was the founder and chairman of Alan Wasser Associates, comprising three companies which specialized in theatrical general management, tour booking, and tour marketing across North America.

A native of Portland, OR, Alan earned his bachelor's degree at Columbia University, majoring in music composition and orchestration, and got his start in the professional theatre at Circle in the Square - first as subscription manager and later as assistant managing director.

After years of gaining experience on the road with touring productions, Alan was appointed general manager of productions for The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1985. In 1986, Alan Wasser Associates general managed all of Cameron Mackintosh's Broadway and U.S. touring productions, including Les Miserables(Broadway and three touring productions), The Phantom of the Opera (Broadway and three touring productions), Miss Saigon (Broadway and two touring productions), Five Guys Named Moe, Swan Lake, Putting It Together, Martin Guerre, and Oklahoma!

With his business partners Allan Williams, Aaron Lustbader and Mark Shacket, he later formed Foresight Theatrical LLC, which offers executive producing, general managing, booking, press, and other theatrical resources for stage productions both in the United States and overseas. Broadway production have included Fosse, Seussical, Sweet Smell of Success, Hollywood Arms, All Shook Up, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chita Rivera - The Dancer's Life, A Chorus Line, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, Cry Baby the Musical, Journey's End, Thurgood, Oleanna, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Lysistrata Jones, and so many more. Foresight Theatrical was the General Manager for the Tony Awards® from 2009-2012.

Alan was a longtime member of the Executive Committee of the League of American Theatres and Producers (now called The Broadway League), and also served on the board of Playwrights Horizons. He was an amateur composer and in 1996 released a CD, Music from Laurel Hill.