Hal Prince is Dead

Hal Prince Dead: Towering Broadway Director’s Work Included ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ ‘Cabaret’

Harold Prince, center, attends a rehearsal of “The Flight of the Lawnchair Man,” a one-act musical he directed in 2015.

NEW YORK —

Harold Prince, a Broadway director and producer who pushed the boundaries of musical theater with such groundbreaking shows as “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cabaret,” “Company” and “Sweeney Todd” and won a staggering 21 Tony Awards, has died. Prince was 91.

Prince’s publicist, Rick Miramontez, said Prince died Wednesday after a brief illness in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Prince was known for his fluid, cinematic director’s touch and was unpredictable and uncompromising in his choice of stage material. He often picked challenging, offbeat subjects to musicalize, such as the murderous, knife-wielding barber who baked his victims in pies in “Sweeney Todd” or the 19th century opening of Japan to the West in “Pacific Overtures.”

By skunty empire