Hal Prince Reportedly Suffered Minor Stroke

Michael Riedel of the New York Post reports that acclaimed Broadway director and producer Hal Prince "suffered what close friends are calling a 'minor stroke' Sunday afternoon. He was released from the hospital Wednesday - his 80th birthday - and is expected to be on the mend soon."

Having directed and produced over 50 Broadway productions, Hal Prince has left a lasting-mark on the New York theatre history books.  He set foot on the scene directing his first musical in 1955, the Tony Award-winning The Pajama Game. In the coming decades, Prince would pair with some of Broadway's legends, including Stephen Sondheim, John Kander and Fred Ebb and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Prince's impressive list of theatrical milestones and blockbusters include The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, West Side Story, Damn Yankees, Follies, Evita, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show Boat, Company, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof.

Hal Prince has garnered an unparalleled 19 Tony Awards – for Best Direction of Best Musical (as producer) and received the 2006 Tony Award for Special Achievement.

His most recent Broadway production was last season's short-lived but hailed production of LoveMusik at the Biltmore Theatre, featuring Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy with the music of Kurt Weill. Other Broadway credits include Parade, Fiorello!, On the Twentieth Century, Merrily We Roll Along, Candide and A Little Night Music.

According to Riedel, today's staged reading of Prince's next production, Paradise Found – based on Joseph Roth's erotic fairy-tale "The Tale of the 1,002nd Night" – was postponed.

Hal Prince (photo by Walter McBride / Retna Ltd)