Harold Prince Says Hollywood Has Changed Broadway

With 21 Tony Awards to his credit, legendary theatre producer/director Harold Prince has undoubtedly changed Broadway in his 65+ years in the business.

He started as an office boy to another legendary Broadway producer/director (and also bookwriter), George Abbott. Mr. Abbott, as he was always called, specialized in solidly crafted musicals like THE PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES, that provided great entertainment, but as he explains in a Bloomberg interview, the young Prince saw greater potential.

"I wanted musicals to be more serious," he says, "and there were a lot of things playing into the possibility of them being more serious. The popular music of the theater ceased to be theater music-all of that stuff the Gershwins wrote, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart. You were almost obligated to think of musicals in terms of more serious subject matter."

That thinking towards more serious subject matter led to his producing groundbreaking classics like WEST SIDE STORY, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and CABARET. He also directed the latter, and kept the producer/director position when he and Stephen Sondheim changed people's thoughts of what musicals can do with COMPANY, FOLLIES, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, PACIFIC OVERTURES, SWEENEY TODD.

But when asked about Hollywood's influence on the current Broadway scene, his reaction wasn't favorable, noting how escalating costs cause producers to make less courageous decisions and how producers and Audience members come in with different expectations, making the experience more informal and less of an occasion.

Click here for the full article.

For a taste of Harold Prince's significant influence on the history of musical theatre, check out the video for highlights from PRINCE OF BROADWAY, which premiered in Tokyo and Osaka in the fall of 2015.