Go Inside the Starry, Teary Memorial for Theater Titan Harold Prince

The prince of Broadway was memorialized on December 16. The theater community gathered at the Majestic Theatre to honor 21-time Tony winner Harold Prince, who died on July 31 at the age of 91. Prince worked on Broadway for 60 years, nearly the breadth of the American musical itself, producing and/or directing the iconic original productions of West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Evita and Parade. 

Many of the remarks of the day focused on Prince’s ability to bring artists together and create a family with every production. “For all the talk about his gift for mise-en-scène, Hal’s job wasn’t about directing sets. Hal’s job was about people,” said Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown from the stage of the Majestic Theatre, home of Broadway's longest-running musical Phantom. Like many, Brown considered Prince a mentor and worked with the director on the revue Prince of Broadway. 

Nearly every name imaginable from the Broadway community gathered to celebrate Prince. Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Bernadette Peters, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Carol Burnett, Billy Porter, Thomas Kail, Victor Garber, Laura Linney, Richard Kind, Brooks Ashmanskas, William Ivey Long, Sierra Boggess, Rosie O’Donnell and Norm Lewis were just a handful of the luminaries in attendance. 

“We’re here to honor him, not mourn him,” said Sondheim, Prince’s most frequent collaborator; they carried the American musical into modernity with works like Sweeney Todd and Company. The eight-time Tony winner continued: “Mourning is a private matter, and I think this is how Hal would have wanted it: Songs and anecdotes and reminiscences.”

The memorial also featured performances from Prince’s extensive career. Boggess sang “Will He Like Me” from She Loves Me; Ann Morrison, Lonny Price and Jim Walton—Merrily We Roll Along’s original trio—reunited to sing “Old Friends”; Phantom’s current stars John Riddle and Meghan Picerno sang “All I Ask of You.” In the afternoon's most moving gesture, Tony winner Joel Grey took the stage, cane in hand and spotlight fixed, to reprise his performance of “Willkommen” from Cabaret, bidding Prince an emotional auf wiedersehen. 

In between the performances, many artists shared memories about the late director. “Hal was a brother I never had,” said Burnett, whose 2002 autobiographical play (co-written with her late daughter Carrie Hamilton) Hollywood Arms was directed by Prince. Burnett recalled how working on it with Prince soon after her daughter's death, “was the healing I needed. His humor and good cheer made every rehearsal just joyous. And he had so much love for his work. He had the energy of a teenager. Of course, we all know how wonderful his laugh was.” She also added fondly, “I may not remember everything Hal said, but I will always remember how Hal made me feel.”

Composer Lloyd Webber, who worked with Prince on Evita and the record-breaking Phantom, offered words of advice from the director: “I remember his reply to a young kid who said, ‘Mr. Prince, what is your real hope for the future of musical theater?’ And he said, ‘I hope that the commercial theater on Broadway and in London is able to continue to do new, original work." 

To end the memorial, actors filled the stage for a final song. Brown introduced the performance by reiterating the theme of family. “If you pay attention to cast lists and cast albums and show posters, you notice that there are so many actors who appear in show after shows of Hal’s—and of course designers and choreographers, writers and composers, stage managers, conductors. Those people weren’t just part of the creative process. As far as Hal was concerned, they had to be part of the family.” And for the artists lucky enough to share the room with Prince, said Brown, “God, we were just pinching ourselves all the time, that we got to be there. That somehow, Hal Prince wants us to inspire him, to spark him—when he’s done so much that inspires and sparks us.”

Everyone then sang the hopeful finale to Merrily We Roll Along, “Our Time.” Afterward, the audience stood in a sustained ovation as Prince's portrait was projected on the stage of the Majestic. Across the street, the marquee of the St. James Theatre dimmed, and the following words were illuminated: "We salute the legendary Hal Prince."