9 Quotes & Sayings By Harold Prince

Harold Prince is the Tony-winning director of the musicals Gypsy, The Phantom of the Opera, and Godspell. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 7, 1927. His father was a lawyer, his mother a schoolteacher. After graduating from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature, he worked as a reporter and copy editor for several newspapers and magazines Read more

He began directing musicals during his time as an office manager for "The Works", a Broadway department store. He soon became involved with director-choreographer Jerome Robbins, with whom he created several productions and whom he later joined as an associate director and choreographer.

1
Collaboration is just, really, a group of people getting in a room with their eye on a very similar prize and wanting to come out with the same show. The director, ultimately, is the guy in front of whom the buck stops. So, he has to have the courage to prevail. But, he has got to have a huge amount of respect for his collaborators. Harold Prince
2
I always liked the visuals to be choice and at the same time minimalist. And, I love black boxes. After all, that's what theatre is, it's an empty space, and it's both limited and unlimited because the space is the space, but what you can do with people's imaginations is really endless. Harold Prince
3
I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the '40s on. Harold Prince
4
Nobody has yet proven that taking a chance and doing something unique that an audience isn't used to is a bad idea. What the theater lacks is that kind of courage. Harold Prince
5
There was never any question that I would go to college, that I would travel, that I would go to the theater early and often. Harold Prince
6
You think, 'Musicals, they must always be romantic' - You'd be surprised how few of them historically have ever been romantic. Harold Prince
7
You could argue that 'Sweeney Todd' was romantic, if you looked closely at it, but it didn't impart that to its audiences. But it's large, and it's melodramatic, and it's a style I like to work in periodically. Harold Prince
8
I really don't spend time thinking about the past. I think about the future. I'm not stopping. Harold Prince