Roger Berlind, Tony-Winning Broadway Producer, Dies at 90

He wasn’t born into the theater, nevertheless. Irrespective of youthful aspirations as a songwriter, he identified do the job on Wall Avenue, turning out to be a brokerage associate just before the dying of his wife and a few of 4 young children in a June 1975 aircraft crash in New York City that transformed the trajectory of his lifetime.

He told the Moments in 1998 that constructing a company and making cash didn’t make feeling to him anymore.

Eventually, he turned to Broadway, redefining himself through a new occupation.

Brook Berlind, his 2nd wife, described the switch in phase phrases.

“His everyday living was utterly bifurcated by the incident,” she explained. “There was Act I and Act II. I really do not feel lots of other folks could have gone on to these types of good results soon after this kind of catastrophe.”

His debut output in 1976 of Rex, a Richard Rodgers musical about Henry VIII, was panned by a Instances theater critic. His last show, a Tony winner brought to the stage by many producers, was the 2019 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma.

Other reveals incorporated the primary 1980 production of Amadeus, which gained a Tony for finest participate in, and Subtle Ladies, a 1981 musical with a two-calendar year operate featuring tunes by Duke Ellington.

Star-studded revivals integrated Death of a Salesman in 2012 with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Hello Dolly in 2017 with Bette Midler.

During his occupation, Berlind took the flops in stride with the successes, discovering worth in some losing productions.

“I know it is not well worth it economically,” he told The Periods in 1998. “But I enjoy theater.”

Berlind exhibited his have flair for the extraordinary immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks when he took then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s encouragement of Broadway to heart and appeared onstage on Sept. 23 following the conclusion of what experienced been scheduled to be the final general performance of Kiss Me, Kate.

“The exhibit will go on,” he declared to an psychological viewers, extending a two-calendar year run for a few months irrespective of declining product sales.

Survivors include his wife and son, two granddaughters and a brother.