"Mr. Prince," a Documentary About Theatre Legend Hal Prince, to Premiere on Ovation

By Kenneth Jones
21 May 2009

Harold Prince
Harold Prince
Photo by Elisabeth Novick

Ovation TV, the network dedicated to art and contemporary culture, will present the world premiere of an original documentary, "Mr. Prince," celebrating the career of the groundbreaking, multiple Tony Award-winning producer-director Harold Prince, June 6.

The 8 PM (ET) screening (check your local cable listings) kicks off a special week of Ovation TV programming saluting Broadway, coinciding with the June 7 Tony Awards.

"Mr. Prince" features interviews with such Broadway luminaries as Carol Burnett, Stephen Sondheim, Joel Grey, Angela Lansbury, Chita Rivera and Mandy Patinkin, as well as Prince himself. He'll recount his long career in the theatre (The Pajama Game was an early project) and will discuss his current project — Paradise Found, with book by Richard Nelson, lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh, music by late waltz king Johann Strauss II, new music by composer-orchestrator Jonathan Tunick and co-direction and choreography by Susan Stroman.

"Mr. Prince" is a Working Pictures production for Ovation TV, produced and directed by Sara Feldman Sheehan and Bobby Sheehan.

Kris Slava, senior vice president of Ovation TV, said in a statement, "Hal Prince's career is astonishing for the sheer number of shows, and even more so for their extraordinary quality. He has consistently been a fantastically fearless innovator. His list of credits reads like a primer on the modern history of American theatre. We are very pleased that this exceptionally talented man agreed to let us follow him to the theatre and get an insider's view into his creative process. He is so beloved by actors and everyone he's ever worked with that we were able to include a veritable who's-who of Broadway making this a very, very special documentary."

Harold ("Hal") Prince has directed the premiere productions of Cabaret, the original Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, The Phantom of the Opera, She Loves Me, Company, Follies, Candide, Pacific Overtures, Evita, Parade and LoveMusik. Before becoming a director, Prince's productions included The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Among the plays he has directed are Hollywood Arms, The Visit, The Great God Brown, End of the World, Play Memory and his own play, Grandchild of Kings. His opera productions have been seen at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vienna Staatsoper and the Theater Colon in Buenos Aires.

Recently, he became an officer with the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Government for "contributing significantly to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world." He is the recipient of a National Medal of Arts for the year 2000 from President Clinton for a career spanning more than 40 years, in which "he changed the nature of the American musical." A 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree, he is the recipient of 21 Tony Awards, more than any other individual.

In the U.S., currently, he is represented by the Broadway and national tour companies of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and a 95-minute new version of the smash show, dubbed Phantom — The Las Vegas Spectacular, at the Venetian Resort.

For more information, visit ovationtv.com.

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Starting on June 7, Ovation TV begins a week-long tribute to Broadway, featuring movie musicals "Victor/Victoria"; "The Music Man"; "New York, New York" and more.