Harold "Hal" Prince is American musical-theater royalty with an unparalleled career as a director and producer.
His collaborations with Stephen Sondheim include directing the premiere productions of "Sweeney Todd," "A Little Night Music," "Company," "Follies," "Candide" and "Pacific Overtures." He also directed "Phantom of the Opera" and "Evita" for Andrew Lloyd Webber. As a producer, highlights include "The Pajama Game," "Damn Yankees," "West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof."
He has produced operas all over the world, served as a trustee for the New York Public Library and on the National Council of the Arts, and is the recipient of a National Medal of Arts. He's a Kennedy Center Honoree, too.
Prince's thoughts on the state of musical theater:
-- On Hollywood stars needed to guarantee Broadway box office:
You're talking to a guy who's been around for close to 60 years, who really wants people to make theater their life's work, (people who) so appreciate a success that they want to stay with it. Ethel Merman would stay with a show for years and tour with it. So would Mary Martin, the great stars. They recognized the value of that success and nurtured it.
Now, you come from Hollywood, you play 12 weeks and go away. I don't think that's the best policy. And the public encourages it because that's what they want to see. They want to see movie stars, and some of them are terrific ... really talented. But others are not so talented. Really, the material is what should be pre-eminent, but it's not at this point.
-- On "Phantom" after its star left:
No one is saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Who are the big stars in 'Phantom'?" When Michael Crawford left after a year and a half, we went on to play another 21 years and a half, and we're still running strong.
-- On today's jukebox musicals and dance shows:
I don't think there's a defined contemporary American musical, do you?
I think there's a mistake being made. We haven't encouraged the young composers and lyricists as we did the earlier generation. In the course of my career, I did the first show with Bock and Harnick, and then with Sondheim, and then with Jason (Robert) Brown ("Parade"), who is a young and very, very gifted fellow. It's hard to get those people on Broadway now, and one of the main reasons is money and also the nature of producing.
-- On producing a Broadway show today:
There was a show this year that had more than 40 producers above the title. ... Most of the shows I did as a producer, I started as the youngest of three producers, and then there were two names, and then I was one of one names for years. ...
I really wish people -- maybe it's naive -- wish people had priorities and were willing to be artistic patrons. (He mentions "Follies," which he produced with Ruth Mitchell.) You would never have realized a penny from that production, but for the rest of your life you were proud to have been its patron. That very rarely exists anymore, if at all.
-- On his current project, "Paradise Found," which he is working on with director/choreographer Susan Stroman:
We did it in London in a theater that's too small for it, and it really impeded my, if I will allow myself the word, vision and the author's. But again, the only people who were willing to put money into it were willing to do it only in a small theater. The material is great. But it should be big, and it's almost like a few years ago when I did (the revival of) "Show Boat." I started rehearsals saying, "Oscar Hammerstein said, 'Show Boat' is big; it's got to be big." And 71 people were in that cast, and we were a hit and we made money, and it ran a long time. That's the fate I should have assigned to "Paradise Found." And now I have to do it and do it somewhere where there's a large chorus.
We had wonderful actors, but everyone was doubling and tripling. We had Shuler Hensley and Mandy Patinkin and Judy Kaye and Kate Baldwin, just an extraordinary cast, but they were doing chorus work as well. That's not what the material demands, so now I have to do it that way. In fact, I'm meeting with the authors (soon), and we're going to aim for it.
It's not just stubbornness. I know it's wonderful, but you should hear the music played by 20 instruments, not seven. It should be lavish, then the audience gets lost in that, which is what you want.
(E-mail Sharon Eberson at seberson@post-gazette.com)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)