Veteran Production Stage Manager Beverley Randolph died Tuesday, March 15 at her home in Bloomingdale, NJ, surrounded by family and friends. The cause was cancer. The highly-respected Randolph, 59, stage managed more than 20 Broadway productions over the course of a 30-plus year career. At the time of her death and since 2009, she was Production Supervisor for the musical The Addams Family. Her credits include the Kander & Ebb musical Curtains, the musical Little Women, the 2002 revival of Into the Woods, the 1998 revival of The Sound of Music, Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning best musical Passion, Kander & Ebb's The Kiss of the Spider Woman, William Finn's Falsettos, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Follies in Concert at Avery Fisher Hall, the 1987 revival of Kander & Ebb's Cabaret and Neil Simon's Chapter Two. In the 1980's, she stage managed eight Broadway productions for legendary producer/director Hal Prince.
"
Beverley Randolph was a fabulous stage manager. She worked first as a replacement on Evita, stayed with me through seven additional Broadway productions, and continued with a succession of ambitiously demanding shows. I especially recall how the ‘kids' in the original company of Merrily We Roll Along respected and admired Beverley. She loved her actors, the crew, everyone with whom she worked and though she was a taskmaster, she was always warm and cheerful," said
Hal Prince.
David Hyde Pierce, who worked with Randolph on the musical Curtains, said "Beverley was the perfect stage manager - tough and tender, disciplined and compassionate, loving and beloved. We've lost a great friend."
Said director
Jerry Zaks of The Addams Family, "Beverley was indomitable, meticulously professional and thoroughly dedicated to the show. She did her job as well as anyone has ever done it - with great heart and spirit, and soul. She was my field general and my rock."
Director
James Lapine, who worked with Randolph on Passion and Into the Woods, said "Beverley was more than just a stage manager. She was the heart and soul of every production she worked on. Beverley religiously protected the work of writers and directors and always looked after everyone from the star of a show to the stagehand in the basement. She loved every aspect of the theatre and her enthusiasm and passion was inspiring to all who had the pleasure to work with her."
Randolph was born in Norristown, PA and attended Ithaca College. She is survived by her husband James Eisner, a theatrical production electrician. The couple married in 2002. She is also survived by her mother, Sarah DaCosta; sister Carolyn Borlo; brother-in-law Joseph Borlo; and niece, Sarah Randolph Borlo.
A memorial service for family and friends will be held Monday, May 23 at 2 pm at Christ Episcopal Church in Pompton Lakes, NJ. Additionally, a memorial for the Broadway community will be held at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre at a date to be announced.
Donations can be made to The Actors' Fund in the name of
Beverley Randolph.
