Todd Haimes, who led the Roundabout Theatre Firm from an off-off-Broadway firm teetering on the sting of chapter into a serious theatrical drive with works on 5 levels — together with three Broadway theaters — and dozens of Tony Awards, has died at 66.
Haimes, the inventive director and CEO of the nonprofit Roundabout, died in New York Metropolis on Wednesday as a result of problems from most cancers, his longtime pal and spokesperson Matt Polk stated.
“Relaxation in peace, Mr. Haimes,” actor Mark Ruffalo, who starred in a Roundabout revival of “The Value” on Broadway in 2017, wrote on Twitter. “You have been an exquisite and type soul. Thanks for the possibility to work on the Roundabout with you. You can be missed on Broadway, the theater world, and the world at massive.”
Broadway reveals underneath Haimes’ 39-year tenure embrace “The Actual Factor” with Ewan McGregor, “A Soldier’s Play” with David Alan Grier and “On the Twentieth Century” with Kristin Chenoweth. Different triumphs embrace ”The People,” the 2011 revival of “Something Goes” with Sutton Foster and “9” with Jane Krakowski.
Roundabout had an extended, profitable historical past with “Cabaret,” reviving it in 1998 with the Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall-directed model starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson after which reviving it once more with Cumming and Sienna Miller in 2014.
Throughout Haimes’s tenure, Roundabout reveals received 34 Tony Awards, 58 Drama Desk Awards, 73 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 21 Lucille Lortel Awards and 14 Obie Awards.
Tributes on Twitter got here from such theater royalty as Chenoweth, Jason Alexander and Audra McDonald. Cynthia Nixon posted a photograph of her and Haimes with the caption: “Todd paired the world’s sweetest demeanor with a killer sense of what to provide and the right way to produce it. I’m awed by all you constructed for us however can’t think about Broadway with out you right here as a part of it.”
Haimes was a Yale MBA who was appointed Roundabout government director in 1983 to an organization that had been in Chapter 11 since 1977 and was evicted from its house on twenty third Road. By 1991, Haimes had Roundabout working its personal venue at its first Broadway dwelling on the now-closed Criterion Middle at Broadway and forty fifth Road.
The corporate’s early successes embrace “Anna Christie” starring Liam Neeson and Richardson, and a revival of “She Loves Me,” each in 1993. He instituted the Early Curtain collection in 1993, which noticed 7 p.m. openings to draw the after-work crowd.
Roundabout grew to embody the American Airways Theatre, the Studio 54 theater, the Stephen Sondheim Theatre and the off-Broadway Laura Pels Theatre and one other black field within the basement of the Pels.
His management included outreach and education schemes and in addition offered a house to rising playwrights as a part of the Roundabout Underground program. Alumni embrace Stephen Karam, Lindsey Ferrentino, Steven Levenson, Joshua Harmon and Ming Peiffer.
“He modified my life, and the lives of numerous others in New York theater. All of us mourn his loss,” wrote Warren Leight, whose play “Aspect Man” made it to Broadway in 1998 due to Haimes.
He’s survived by his spouse, Jeanne-Marie Haimes; a daughter, Hilary Haimes; a son, Andrew Haimes; two stepdaughters; three grandsons; and a granddaughter.
