Roger Berlind Dead: Prolific Broadway Producer Was 90

Roger Berlind, a prolific producer of much more than 100 Broadway displays which include these types of the latest smashes as “The E book of Mormon,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “Dear Evan Hansen,” has died. He was 90.

Berlind died Dec. 18 at his property in Manhattan, according to the New York Occasions. Berlind was renowned on the Principal Stem for his unusual route to results on Broadway. The Brooklyn indigenous sought to make it as a songwriter but shifted to Wall Road and expenditure banking to make a residing. After shedding his spouse and 3 of his 4 kids in a airplane crash at John F. Kennedy Airport in 1975, he ultimately uncovered his new calling manufacturing Broadway plays and musicals.

Berlind’s credits stretched from early flops like 1976’s “Rex” and 1977’s “The Merchant” to present-day hits such as the 2019 revival of “Oklahoma!,” “Mean Girls” and “The Curious Incident of the Pet dog in the Night-Time.” The most the latest of his 25 Tony Award wins arrived last calendar year for the radically re-imagined staging of the long lasting Rodgers and Hammerstein tuner “Oklahoma!” In 2017, he took property two Tonys, for ideal musical (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and for most effective musical revival (“Hello, Dolly!”).

The producer’s several other credits involve 1980s hits “Amadeus,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Nine,” “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” and “City of Angels.” In the 1990s he scored with a revival of “Gypsy,” “Kiss Me, Kate” and “A Amusing Thing Occurred on the Way to the Forum.”

Broadway veteran Betty Buckley remembered Berlind as “a wonderful male and wonderful producer” in a tweet sent on Xmas Eve soon after his death was noted by the New York Periods. Actor David Aaron Damane observed that Berlind manufactured his initially-at any time Broadway present, “The Everyday living,” an first musical that ran from April 1997 to June 1998.

“Always a kind word, constantly an affirming handshake, generally a enjoy for our present and theatre in basic,” Damane wrote on Twitter. “Thank you for sharing it all.”

Berlind’s son William was 2 a long time aged when his mother, Helen, 12-12 months-old sister and two brothers, aged 9 and 6, died in the tragic incident, in accordance to the New York Moments. William followed his father on to the Excellent White Way, functioning alongside him as a producer for Berlind Productions in addition to crafting for the New York Times Journal and New York Observer.

In addition to his son, Berlind’s survivors consist of his spouse of 40 decades, Brooke, a brother and two granddaughters.