Biography of Harold Prince
About the Artist
Director and producer
Harold Prince has won 20 Tony awards and received the National Medal of Arts in 2000 from President Clinton for a career spanning more than 40 years, in which "he changed the nature of the American musical." Prince attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1948. He first emerged as a producer in New York in 1954 at the age of 24 with a production of
The Pajama Game at the St. James Theater on Broadway. He produced
Damn Yankees the following year and won Tony awards for both productions. Among others, Prince also produced
West Side Story,
Fiddler on the Roof,
Fiorello! and
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. As a director, he has worked on the premiere productions of
She Loves Me,
Cabaret,
Company,
Follies,
Candide,
Pacific Overtures,
A Little Night Music,
Sweeney Todd,
Evita,
The Phantom of the Opera,
Parade and
Bounce. Among the plays he has directed are
Hollywood Arms,
The Visit,
The Great God Brown,
End of the World,
Play Memory and his own play,
Grandchild of Kings. His opera productions have been staged at The Chicago Lyric, The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vienna Staatsoper and the Theater Colon in Buenos Aires. Currently, Prince is working on a new national tour of
Evita, as well as an updated version of
The Phantom of the Opera set to open in 2006 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. His film credits include movie adaptations of
The Pajama Game,
Damn Yankees and
A Little Night Music, starring Elizabeth Taylor. He also directed the original screenplay
Something for Everyone made for National General. Prince has also directed several notable television productions, including
Candide as a part of "Live from Lincoln Center" and a RKO-Nederlander production of
Sweeney Todd. In addition to his work in the theater, Prince has served as a trustee for the New York Public Library and on the National Council of the Arts of the NEA. He was a 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree.
