Goodbye, Hal Prince!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                    "If only angels could prevail,
                                                     We'd be the way we were."--
                                                      Stephen Sondheim, "Johanna,"
                                                      from "Sweeney Todd" (1979)



                                         For my entire life--actually several months before, as Prince's first endeavor, "The Pajama Game," opened at the St. James Theatre, on May 13, 1954, five days and six months before my
birth, on November 18, 1954--Harold Prince was part of my Broadway.  He was already there, when I came into the world, and I had no reason to expect he would ever leave it.  I mean, what would Broadway be, without him?????????????

                                         Well, now, with the passing of him, yesterday, at the age of 91--and in Iceland, yet!!!!-- there will be a chance to find out, and I am not particularly hopeful.  While he was alive, Michael Bennett aroused hope in many that he would be Prince's successor.  But with his death, there went that prospect.  Now, who is left? Nobody.

                                             But what a legacy Prince left.  Too much to mention here, but
these are my personal favorites--

                             Arguably, the greatest musical ever written--whose contrasts of darkness and color, with that score, aided by the legendary cast album, taught me much about how expansive musical theater could actually be.  At the time, it was called "Proustian," and only Prince could have brought an idea like that to the stage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amazingly, this blend of opera and theatrics blew me away, at one of the worst times in my life. When it opened, my mother was terminally ill in the hospital, and the quote used in this post's opening still brings me to tears, whenever I see it.  I have seen 'Sweeney' at least a dozen times, but those seven times at the original production are seared in my memory forever.

"Merrily We Roll Along" was probably the most personal of all my Prince experiences.  I was pretty much the same age as the cast members, so I wondered how I would age.  Now, that I have aged, and look back, "Our Time" reduces me to tears.  I met David Semonin, a friend of 29 years, at my initial viewing, and over the years I have met and worked with some of the cast members.  It reminds me how I thought the world was mine, when young, and now, those last fifteen minutes break my heart, because the realization sinks in that the past can never be rewritten.  For a "certified flop," it is one of the musical theater's frequently revisited vehicles.  And that is due to Prince, and Sondhiem.

Not to say I did not love "On The Twentieth Century," "Evita," "Grind," "A Little Night Music," "Pacific Overtures," "Candide.' and God knows how many other Prince shows I saw, but his guiding force was always there, and I thought always would be.

Last night, Broadway dimmed the lights for Harold Prince.

But, in a sadder sense, it dimmed the lights on itself.

Rest In Peace, and Thank You, Harold Prince!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!