R.I.P. Harold Prince 1928 – 2019

[scenicdesign71]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/theater/hal-prince-dead.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/opinion/sunday/hal-prince-broadway.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/theater/hal-prince-phantom-of-the-opera.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/theater/hal-prince-times-archives.html

[scenicdesign71]

I meant to post this here a few days ago, but better late than never.

With Phantom ending its 35-year Broadway run in February, Carol Burnett is spearheading a campaign to rename the Majestic Theatre for Harold Prince:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/theater/carol-burnett-hal-prince-broadway.html

[scenicdesign71]

Playbill:  After 36 Years, Hal Prince's Name Can No Longer Be Found in a Broadway Playbill
                    Prince's momentous Broadway credit streak came to a close July 7 with the closing of Merrily We Roll Along.


Most of those 36 years were due to Phantom, obviously, but it is kinda cool that Prince's "credit streak," covering the entire last third of his life, continued for almost five years after his passing.

I am a little surprised that the current Cabaret revival doesn't give him an "originally directed by" credit.  It may have something to do with the contractual language around his original 1966 production: Prince has had an "originally produced by" credit on Fiddler revivals since 1964, but with Cabaret two years later he was still a relatively new and unproven director.  Or perhaps the show itself has changed enough by now — with Fosse, Mendes, and now Frecknall each shuffling songs, scenes and characters to suit their visions — that Prince's original-staging credit would seem irrelevant.  (Mendes's 1998 B'way revival, now that I'm checking it, likewise included no such credit in its program.  But the Gillian Lynne-directed revival that I saw on the West End in 1987 did note that Cabaret had been "originally produced and directed on the New York stage by Harold Prince".  I can't recall how closely, or not, Lynne's production stuck to the 1966 libretto, but I do remember that Mark Thompson's set designs bore no resemblance at all to the Boris Aronson originals; nor would I have said Lynn's staging was especially indebted to Prince, who around that time was himself mounting a 1987 B'way revival with a couple of new songs).