WHO'S WHO
ROBERT E. GRIFFITH
PRODUCER
Robert Griffith's onstage career included appearances in such fare as Brother Rat, Under the Gaslight, The Decoy, and, most notably, Dinner at Eight in 1932. He had already performed backstage service for Rodgers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse by the time he stage-managed Billion Dollar Baby, directed by George Abbott and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. His long association with Mr. Abbott includes assignments as stage manager and/or assistant to the director for some of the most noteworthy American musicals, among them Barefoot Boy with Cheek, High Button Shoes, Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! (these two in collaboration with Jerome Robbins), Where's Charley?, Call Me Madam, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Wonderful Town (music by Leonard Bernstein), The Pajama Game (with Robbins as co-director), On Your Toes, Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, Fiorello!, and Tenderloin. A list of some fifty major Broadway productions goes on to include such works as Wish You Were Here and Best Foot Forward, in addition to the London productions, to name but two, of The Pajama Game and Touch and Go, both of which he directed.
HAROLD PRINCE
PRODUCER
The partnership of Robert Griffith and Harold Prince produced such musical classics as The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, and Tenderloin. In 1961 Hal Prince directed his first show, A Family Affair, which featured Larry Kert, and the following year marked the beginning of his long association with Stephen Sondheim, as producer of A Funny Thing... As Sondheim's collaborator he went on to produce and/or direct Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Side By Side By Sondheim, Sweeney Todd, and Merrily We Roll Along. Along the way he performed similar duties for such historic works as She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, Flora the Red Menace (which introduced Liza Minnelli to Broadway), Cabaret, Zorba, Candide (1974 and 1997), On the Twentieth Century, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Kiss of the Spider Woman (starring Tony winner Chita Rivera), the 1994 revival of Show Boat, and Jason Robert Brown's Parade. He directed the film versions of A Little Night Music and Something for Everyone, the latter starring Angela Lansbury Non-musical plays include Take Her She's Mine, and, as Artistic Director of the New Phoenix Repertory Company, productions of The Great God Brown, Don Juan,. The Visit, Holiday, and The Member of the Wedding. For the opera world in the United States and Vienna he has staged productions of La Fanciulla del West, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and Faust, among others. Most recently he produced and directed Hollywood Arms, and re-united with Stephen Sondheim to direct Bounce. His autobiography Contradictions was published in 1974. Harold Prince is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and has won a record twenty Tony Awards for producting and directing.
ROGER L. STEVENS
PRODUCER
Roger Stevens was instrumental in seeing West Side Story to completion, loyally and optimistically convinced of its sucesss despite one rejection after another. He divided his time between enterprises in the theater and in real estate, and among his accomplishments in the latter field was the purchase of the Empire State Building. Prior to West Side Story his theatrical endeavors included The Fourposter, Tea and Sympathy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Bad Seed, Bus Stop, Separate Tables, Major Barbara and Waltz of the Toreadors. He has since been represented by The Visit, A Man for All Seasons, Mary Mary, Deathtrap, Betrayal and Annie. He served as Director of the Metropolitan Opera and of the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut. Mr. Stevens was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, and had a key role in bringing West Side Story back to Broadway in 1980 and in sending it on its subsequent European tour.
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