Patty Baker

Patty Baker is a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, arts supporter, and philanthropist whose theatrical career has encompassed acclaimed plays, musicals, revivals, and national tours. A graduate of Hunter College in New York City, where she graduated summa cum laude, Baker has maintained a lifelong involvement with the arts, eventually becoming a prolific Broadway producer.

Before establishing herself on Broadway, Baker was deeply involved with regional arts organizations. While living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she served on the board of the Friends of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater from 1988 to 2000, including a tenure as vice president. The Patty & Jay Baker Theater Complex at the Milwaukee Rep was named in honor of Baker and her husband, Jay. She was also a docent and board member at the Milwaukee Art Museum. After moving full-time to Naples, Florida, in 2000, she served for seven years on the board of The Naples Players at the Sugden Theatre and chaired two fundraisers that raised more than $3.7 million.

Baker made her mark as a Broadway producer with the original production of Memphis, which opened in 2009 and won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. She followed it with productions including Catch Me If You Can, Bonnie and Clyde, Gore Vidal's The Best Man, Glengarry Glen Ross, and the 2012 revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The latter won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, giving Baker another Tony-winning production.

Her Broadway producing work continued with Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which became one of the longest-running musicals of its era, followed by It Shoulda Been You, China Doll, and the 2015 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. She subsequently produced or co-produced Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Significant Other, Bandstand, and A Doll's House, Part 2, the latter earning a Tony nomination for Best Play.

In 2018 alone, Baker was represented on Broadway by several major productions, including Three Tall Women, Carousel, and The Iceman Cometh, all of which received Tony nominations in their respective Best Revival categories. She followed those productions with The Waverly Gallery and To Kill a Mockingbird. Her producing work has also extended beyond Broadway through national touring productions, including Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Hello, Dolly!

In the 2020s, Baker continued to maintain an active presence on Broadway, producing the original musical Diana and the 2022 revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo. Her subsequent credits have included A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, Good Night, Oscar, Harmony, Water for Elephants, The Wiz, Cabaret, The Hills of California, Our Town, Gypsy, Good Night, and Good Luck, and John Proctor is the Villain. She has also co-produced the Broadway production of Titaníque and produced Beaches, A New Musical.

Across her Broadway career, Baker has worked on productions nominated for numerous Tony and Drama Desk Awards. Her Tony-winning credits include Memphis for Best Musical and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for Best Revival of a Play, while many of her other productions—including Beautiful, Fiddler on the Roof, A Doll's House, Part 2, Three Tall Women, Carousel, The Waverly Gallery, American Buffalo, Water for Elephants, Cabaret, Our Town, Gypsy, The Hills of California, and John Proctor is the Villain—have competed for Broadway's top honors.

Through both her producing career and decades of support for regional theatre, Baker has established a substantial presence in the American theatre, supporting work ranging from new musicals and plays to major revivals of classics.