Todd Haimes, who led a theater company to Broadway, dies

NEW YORK (AP) — 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 phases — together with three Broadway theaters — and dozens of Tony Awards, has died. He was 66.

Haimes, the creative director and CEO of the nonprofit Roundabout, died in New York Metropolis on Wednesday because of problems from most cancers, in line with Matt Polk, his longtime buddy and spokesperson.

“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 had been an exquisite and type soul. Thanks for the possibility to work on the Roundabout with you. You may be missed on Broadway, the theater world, and the world at massive.”

Broadway exhibits underneath Haimes’ 39-year tenure embody “The Actual Factor” with Ewan McGregor, “A Soldier’s Play” with David Alan Grier and “On the Twentieth Century” with Kristin Chenoweth. Different triumphs embody ”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 exhibits received 34 Tony Awards, 58 Drama Desk Awards, 73 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 21 Lucille Lortel Awards and 14 Obie Awards.

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 area 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 embody “Anna Christie” starring Liam Neeson and Richardson, and a revival of “She Loves Me,” each in 1993. He instituted the Early Curtain sequence 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 teaching programs and in addition offered a house to rising playwrights as a part of the Roundabout Underground program. Alumni embody 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 “Facet 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 and three grandsons and a granddaughter.

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits