Tony Winner Stuart Thompson, Producer & General Manager of More Than 70 Broadway Shows, Dies at 62

Stuart Thompson, a prolific theatrical producer and manager whose Stuart Thompson Productions brought some of the greatest works of theater to the Broadway stage over the last 20 years—including Proof, The Book of Mormon and Curious Incident—died at his home in New York on the evening of August 17 at age 62. The cause of death was complications from esophageal cancer.

Stuart James Thompson was born in Sydney on July 8, 1955 to Rosamund A. Thompson and J. H. Barrington Thompson and grew up in Adelaide before studying drama at Flinders University and working in arts administration in Australia.

Thompson moved to New York in 1980 to study arts administration at New York University, remaining in the U.S. and working at the Kennedy Center with the American National Theatre under the artistic direction of Peter Sellars from 1984 to 1986.

Mentored by legendary producers Robert Whitehead and Lewis Allen, Thompson's first Broadway assignment as a general manager was on Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men (1989), followed by Tru in the same season.

Thompson began his producing career on Broadway with David Mamet’s The Old Neighborhood (1997) and went on to co-produce Art (1998), The Chairs (1998), Not About Nightingales (1999), The Play What I Wrote (2003), The Retreat From Moscow (2003), On Golden Pond (2005) and the three longest-running plays on Broadway of the last 25 years: The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (2000), Proof (2000) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2014).

Later on, Thompson oversaw both his company’s general management activities and produced shows including The Book of Mormon (2011) as executive producer for the U.S. companies and co-producer of the West End and Australian productions. Thompson's most recent credits include No Man’s Land/Waiting for Godot (2013), King Charles III (2015), Sweat (2017), Six Degrees of Separation (2017) and The Present (2017).

Stuart Thompson Productions remains a producer on the Broadway-bound musical Mean Girls. Thompson's producer partner, Lorne Michaels, said, “A true gentleman and a joy to work with. He led Tina Fey and I through the process of developing our show. We look forward to presenting Mean Girls in both Washington, D.C. and New York to the high standard that Stuart has set for us.”

Thompson won six Tony Awards amid his efforts on more than 70 Broadway productions. In 2010, he was presented with The Robert Whitehead Award for “outstanding achievement in commercial theatre producing.”

Thompson is survived by his husband, Joseph Roland Baker III; brother Graham Thompson, sister-in-law Nicole Thompson and niece Lucy Thompson; sister-in-law Paula Baker and brother-in-law Ben Fournier; nephews Joey Fournier, Beau Fournier and Drew Fournier; father-in-law Joe Baker Jr and mother-in-law Joyce Baker; cousin Margot McCowage and additional family.