Prince began work in the theatre as an assistant stage manager to theatrical producer and director
George Abbott. Along with Abbott, he co-produced
The Pajama Game, which won the 1955
Tony Award for Best Musical. He received Tony Awards for 1956's
Damn Yankees, 1960's
Fiorello! and 1963's
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Tony nominations for 1958's
West Side Story and
New Girl in Town. He went on to direct and produce his own productions in 1962 beginning with the unsuccessful
A Family Affair followed by his first critically successful musical,
She Loves Me (Tony nomination, 1964). He received a Tony Award for producing
Fiddler on the Roof (1965) and almost gave up musical theatre before his Tony winning success directing and producing with
Kander and Ebb's
Cabaret in 1966, followed by Kander and Ebb's
Zorba (Tony nomination, 1969). 1970 marked the start of his greatest creative collaboration, with composer/lyricist
Stephen Sondheim. They had previously worked on
West Side Story and their association spawned a long string of landmark productions, including
Company (Tony Award, 1970),
Follies (Tony Award, 1971),
A Little Night Music (Tony Award, 1973),
Pacific Overtures (Tony nomination, 1976),
Side by Side by Sondheim (Tony nomination, 1977), and
Sweeney Todd (Tony Award, 1979). which ran for 16 performances, they parted ways until
Bounce in 2003. He received a Tony nomination for directing
On the Twentieth Century (1978) and won twice for the
Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
Evita (1980) and
The Phantom of the Opera (1988). and directed ''
A Doll's Life (1982) with lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The musical continued the story of Nora Helmer past what Henrik Ibsen had written in A Doll's House. It ran for five performances; The New York Times'' wrote, "It was overproduced and overpopulated to the extent that the tiny resolute figure of Nora became lost in the combined mechanics of Broadway and the Industrial Revolution." Broadway wags dubbed the show either "A Doll's Death" or, due to the omnipresent portal out of which Nora slammed in the prologue, "A Door's Life." Prince's other commercially unsuccessful musicals included
Grind (Tony nomination, 1985), which closed after 71 performances, and
Roza (1987). However, his production of
The Phantom of the Opera eventually became
the longest-running show in Broadway history. Prince ultimately stopped producing because he "became more interested in directing". He received a 1995 Tony Award for directing
Showboat, and was nominated again for 1999's
Parade. In 2000, he was awarded the
National Medal of Arts. In 2006, Prince was awarded a
Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. In 2007, he directed his last original musical on Broadway,
LoveMusik, and on May 20 of that year, he gave the commencement address at
Gettysburg College in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 2008 Prince was the keynote speaker at
Elon University's Convocation for Honors celebration. Prince co-directed, with
Susan Stroman, the 2010 musical
Paradise Found. The musical features the music of
Johann Strauss II as adapted by
Jonathan Tunick with lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh. The book was written by
Richard Nelson, based on
Joseph Roth's novel
The Tale of the 1002nd Night. The musical premiered at the
Menier Chocolate Factory in London on May 19, 2010 and closed on June 26, and starred
Mandy Patinkin. A retrospective of Prince's work titled
Prince of Broadway was co-directed by Prince and
Susan Stroman and presented by
Umeda Arts Theater in Tokyo, Japan in October 2015. The book was written by David Thompson with additional material and orchestrations by
Jason Robert Brown. Prince was slated to direct ''
The Band's Visit in 2016 but withdrew due to scheduling conflicts. Prince of Broadway'' opened in August 2017 at the
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York with a cast featuring
Chuck Cooper,
Janet Dacal, Bryonha Marie Parham,
Emily Skinner,
Brandon Uranowitz, Kaley Ann Voorhees,
Michael Xavier,
Tony Yazbeck, and
Karen Ziemba. In 2018, Prince announced plans to adapt
Alexandra Shiva's 2015 documentary
How to Dance in Ohio into a musical along with composers Jacob Yandura and Rebekah Greer Melocik and playwright
Bess Wohl. After Prince died in 2019,
Sammi Cannold took over as the show's director. The
musical premiered at
Syracuse Stage on September 21, 2022 and ran until October 9, 2022 and made its Broadway debut in late 2023. In addition to musicals, Prince also directed operas Carlisle Floyd's
Willie Stark, Puccini's
Madama Butterfly, and a revival of Bernstein's
Candide (Tony Award, 1974). In 1983 Prince staged
Turandot for the
Vienna State Opera (conductor:
Lorin Maazel; with
José Carreras and
Éva Marton).
Legacy Prince was the inspiration for
John Lithgow's character in
Bob Fosse's film
All That Jazz. He was also assumed to be the basis of a character in
Richard Bissell's novel
Say, Darling, which chronicled Bissell's own experience turning his novel
7½ Cents into
The Pajama Game. According to Masterworks Broadway, "besides his achievements as a producer and director, Prince is also known for bringing innovation to the theatrical arts. In collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, he was a pioneer in the development of the 'concept musical,' taking its departure from an idea or theme rather than from a traditional story. Their first project of this kind,
Company (1970), was a solid success and paved the way for other innovative musicals." According to
The New York Times, "He was known, too, for his collaborations with a murderer's row of creative talents, among them the choreographers
Bob Fosse,
Jerome Robbins,
Michael Bennett and
Susan Stroman; the designers
Boris Aronson,
Eugene Lee,
Patricia Zipprodt and
Florence Klotz; and the composers
Leonard Bernstein,
John Kander,
Stephen Sondheim and
Andrew Lloyd Webber. A documentary titled ''Harold Prince: The Director's Life
was directed by Lonny Price and broadcast on PBS in Great Performances'' in November 2018. In 2019,
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presented an extensive exhibit honoring the life and work of Harold Prince. Prince served as a trustee for the library and on the
National Council of the Arts of the
National Endowment for the Arts. At the behest of
Lotte Lenya, whom he cast in
Cabaret (1966), Prince also served on the Board of Trustees of The
Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and as a judge of their Lotte Lenya Competition. Andrew Lloyd Webber said: "There isn't anybody working on musical theater on either side of the Atlantic who doesn't owe an enormous debt to this extraordinary man....Hal was very minimalist with his sets. People think of
Phantom as this great big spectacle. That's an illusion. Hal always looked at the show as this big black box in which the stage craft enabled you to believe there was this impressive scenery all around you."
Jason Robert Brown said: "More than anything else, when I think about Hal, I think about his belief in theater. He believed in what it could do....He thought a lot about the world and the political systems and emotional support systems in it. He was very much a political artist." ==Personal life==