Corey Monteith
Matt Quigley
Luke Tremblay
November 23, 2010
Advanced Drama C Block
The Life of Hal Prince
Hal Prince is one of the most decorated directors ever. He has won a total of 21 Tony Awards, more than anyone else. He was born in New York on January 30, 1928. His theatre loving parents took him to many Broadway plays at a young age. This was where Hal got a serious interest in drama. His parents are Milton Prince and Blanche Stern Prince, except they got divorced when he was young and his mom and stepfather raised him. They took him to the theater often to see many of the top productions in the 30's. When he was a teenager, he began to attend the theater by himself. He graduated the Franklin School in 1944, after that, Hal Prince enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “Intending to become a playwright, he took a liberal arts course heavy on literature and history and wrote, acted, and directed plays for the student group, the Penn Players” (answers.com). He got his bachelor’s degree in 1948. After that, he returned to New York to try to break out on the drama business, but he had trouble finding any takers of his plays. Eventually George Abbott took him into his business where he ran the switchboard and delivered messages for Abbott’s office. Prince was an assistant stage manager for Touch and Go. He was later an assistant stage manager on the musical Tickets, Please. In 1950 he was drafted into the US Army for two years where he wrote Contradictions.
His first production was The Pajama Game in 1954, when he was 24. This ended up winning a Tony Award for best musical. It also ran for 1,063 performances. Damn Yankees was his next musical and it received about the same praise as The Pajama Game. It went on for 1,019 performances and also won a Tony.
In 1957 Hal Prince co-produced West Side Story, along Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins, which instantly became a classic, thrilling audiences. This play was similar to a Romeo and Juliet story, with Puerto Ricans and Americans. This was the first time Hal Prince worked with Steven Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics for the songs in the show. Steven Sondheim and Hal Prince teamed up very often after this and worked together in many different productions.
Harold Prince produced Stephen Sondheim's first Broadway musical as a composer, “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum”, directed by George Abbott. The production won the Tony Award for Best Musical and an additional award for Prince as the show's producer.
In 1963, Hal directed his first play She Loves Me, a romantic musical based on the classic film The Shop Around the Corner. In his first production Prince was nominated for a Tony award, although it did not make a name for him. However, Prince won his first Tony award as the producer of “Fiddler on the Roof”, directed by Jerome Robbins. This play was always held in sold out houses and for many years it held the title of longest-running show in Broadway history.
In 1970 Prince decided to collaborate with Stephan Sondheim. Together they created “Company”. This musical was about relationships between adults and one big circle of marriages. Later that year, “Company” won a Tony and Prince won an award for best director. In the next six or seven years the tag team of Prince and Sondheim created “Follies” which was about two married couples who visit there past and see themselves as younger kids. Next was “A Little Night Music” which had a Japanese theme because of the war going on over the past century (achievement.org). In 1979 Prince directed “Sweeney Todd” with Sondheim as his duo. “In Prince's hands, cannibalism serves as a metaphor for the excess and exploitation of the early industrial age” (achievement.org). “Sweeney Todd” is said to be the peak or high point of Prince’s work. 1981 the collaboration of Prince and Sondheim is ended after the production of “Merrily We Roll Along”. 1987. Prince, Eveta, and Webber create their biggest success yet, “The Phantom of the Opera.” With this gothic horror Prince won a Tony for directing and a Tony for musical.
In 2006 Harold Prince was presented a special Tony which was for a lifetime achievement. Prince was involved in over 50 plays and won 21 Tony’s which is more then any other individual (achievement.org). Harold Prince has inspired many musicals, directors, and actors. He has shocked the world with the amount of plays and musicals that he has directed. On January 30th, 1928 a hero was born and to this day is still impacting the world of musicals in countless ways.
