Roger Berlind, Tony’s winning producer 25 times with over 100 Broadway plays and musicals since Amadeus, City of Angels and Doubt for The Book of Mormon, Dear Evan Hansen and Mean Girls, died. He was 90 years old. His family said he died on December 18 in Manhattan from cardiac arrest.
During his impressive 45-year career, Berlind won Tonys for new musicals, plays and revivals for each, starting with the 1981 Best Play trophy for Amadeus – also a future Oscar winner for Best Picture and one of several of his shows that were transferred from the stage to the big screen – for the 2019 Tony Musical Best Revival award for Oklahoma!
Berlind’s original programs won the 2011 Tony Awards, with War Horse winning Best Play and Book of Mormon Best Musical.
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He also conquered Tony’s market in 2017, when his Dear Evan Hansen won the Best Musical and Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler took Best Revival of a Musical. He did similar tricks with Best Play and Best Revival of a Play twice – in 2012 for Clybourne Park and Death of a Seller and 2015 with The curious incident of the dog during the night and Skylight).
Along the way, he also won the main stem main award for originals, including Jerome Robbins Broadway, Copenhagen, Doubt, The History Boys, Passion and city from Angels and revivals like Boys and dolls (1992), A view of the bridge (1998), Kiss me kate (2000) and One passes in the sun (2012).
Berlind Productions, which he directed with his son William Berlind, is behind the Mean Girls musical that has been stepping on stage at the August Wilson Theater since April 2018.
Born on June 27, 1930 in New York City, the oldest Berlind served in the United States Army in post-war Berlin during the 1950s and tried to compose songs early in his career, but ended up working as a partner in the brokerage. of Wall Street films. He quit his job shortly after his wife and three of his four children died in a plane crash in June 1975, when approaching JFK airport.
Within a year, however, Berlind produced his first Broadway show, the Richard Rodgers musical Rex, which closed after about six weeks. It would take four years and six more shows before he scored his first hit on the Main Stem. The musical Amadeus, based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he debuted on December 17, 1980 and starred Tim Curry in the title role along with Ian McKellen and Jane Seymour. He won five Tonys, including Best Play and Best Actor for McKellen.
It was the first of dozens of successes, offset by several failures, that Berlind would produce in the next four decades.
Berlind leaves his second wife, Brook; son William; a brother, Alan; and three granddaughters.