He left a career in tech and found success as a producer, winning four Tonys. His mission: staging productions about underrepresented communities.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:32AMShe was a successful designer. But she was probably best known for being duped in a scheme that inspired the play “Six Degrees of Separation.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:24PMHe won awards for his roles in “Sophisticated Ladies,” “The Tap Dance Kid” and “Miss Saigon” — the most ever in the category of best featured actor in a musical.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:36PMShe wrote about the leading figures in ballet and modern dance for more than 40 years. One of her books was about the brash choreographer Mark Morris.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:44PMBefore the fall of apartheid, his plays, which also included “Woza Albert!” and “Asinamali,” challenged the South African government’s racial policies.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:36PMAfter an acting career that included playing the Olympic sprinter Wilma Rudolph in a TV movie, she became known as a director for her work at regional theaters.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:32PMSoon after appearing in the original Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” she began a new career as a prominent casting director.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:19PMIn his 25-year tenure at Actors’ Equity, he helped build Equity Fights AIDS and challenged the casting of the top roles in the hit musical “Miss Saigon.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:19PMHe wrote several musicals without attracting much notice. Then he struck Broadway gold with “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:37PMA one-woman show that used her date with a white hipster to talk about life, race, love and sex, led an editor to sign her to write two novels.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:37PMHe wrote plays that tackled big issues like the death penalty and gun violence. He also wrote for series including the superhero saga “Luke Cage.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:55PMAs Val, one of the dancers in the hit Broadway musical, she sang a memorable song explaining how she got work by enhancing her body through cosmetic surgery.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:04PMHe helped secure landmark status for more than two dozen theaters in the 1980s, then initiated the design competition that led to a new TKTS booth.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:55PMHe created sets for more than 50 of Broadway’s most celebrated productions, including “Hair,” “A Chorus Line,” “On the Twentieth Century” and “The Producers.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:02PMHe worked with stand-up comedians to develop shows — one of which is headed for Broadway — that were more than just collections of jokes.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:36PMOne of the first Black regulars on a TV variety show, he brought tap to millions of viewers on “The Lawrence Welk Show” after Betty White gave him his first big break.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:49PMAfter playing a critical Broadway role in “A Chorus Line,” he helped start the vibrant Off Broadway MCC Theater. TV watchers knew him from “The Sopranos” and “Law and Order.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:43PMShe was nearly 60 when she began producing shows on Broadway. In 19 years, she had a hand (and her money) in 30 plays and musicals.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:18PMAs a Black woman, she blazed a path Off Broadway with an intuitive grasp of “how a story should be told, particularly a Black story,” Giancarlo Esposito said.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:54PMThe sitcom, about an interfaith marriage, drew criticism from Jewish groups and was canceled after one season. He fared better onstage than in television.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:18PMIn a varied career, she had memorable roles in “Damn Yankees” and on “Seinfeld” and was nominated for three Tonys. She later became a director.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:54PMHe worked with the directors Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse and Jerry Zaks, winning three Tony Awards and an Oscar for “All That Jazz.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:33PMWith “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,” she became the first woman to write the book, music and lyrics of a Broadway musical.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:32PMHe led a big band, conducted on Broadway, collected Emmys and for nearly 50 years led the orchestra on the annual Tony Awards broadcast.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:06PMHe was honored for “Travels With My Aunt,” “Death on the Nile” and “Tess.” He was also renowned for the outlandish outfits he created for Glenn Close as the evil Cruella de Vil.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:42PMShe was a tough yet empathetic voice professor at Oklahoma City University for 67 years. Two of her students, Kelli O’Hara and Kristin Chenoweth, won Tony Awards.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:18PMHe worked with Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and Elvis Presley, wrote the theme music to many familiar series and accompanied Nichols and May and Bea Arthur on Broadway.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:48PMIn his long career, he persuaded Elizabeth Taylor to make her Broadway debut in “The Little Foxes” and produced a memorable flop starring Muhammad Ali.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:32PMHe specialized in one-character dramas, portraying luminaries like Emily Dickinson, John Barrymore, Lillian Hellman, Zelda Fitzgerald and Isak Dinesen.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:18PMHe turned the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” into a long-running Broadway musical and wrote the memorable lyrics to a score that included “Tomorrow.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:03PMFor more than a decade, Mr. Hirson was known for writing for television, but meeting the composer Stephen Schwartz led to the hit musical “Pippin.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:48PM