Broadway’s Roundabout Theatre Company Leader Was 66 – Deadline

Todd Haimes, who built New York’s Roundabout Theater Company into one of the city’s – and country’s- leading nonprofit theaters, died today at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital of complications from osteosarcoma, a bone cancer. He was 66.

His death was announced by Roundabout spokesman Matt Polk. Haimes was first diagnosed with sarcoma of the jaw in 2002.

As the artistic director and CEO of Roundabout, Haimes oversaw one of the most prolific and successful of all Broadway and Off Broadway theater companies, responsible for such acclaimed productions as The Man Who Came To Dinner, starring Nathan Lane (2000), Big River (2004), The Pajama Game (2006), On the 20th Century (2015), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2016), and A Soldier’s Play (2020), among many others. Among its more recent Broadway productions were the revivals of 1776 and Caroline, Or Change, as well as Birthday Candles starring Debra Messing and critically acclaimed productions of The Minutes and Trouble in Mind.

Under his leadership, the Roundabout has won 34 Tony Awards, 58 Drama Desk Awards, 73 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 21 Lucille Lortel Awards, and 14 Obie Awards.

With three Broadway venues – the American Airlines Theatre, Studio 54 and the Stephen Sondheim Theatre – and two Off Broadway venues at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, the Roundabout is by any definition one of the city’s most influential and acclaimed producers and presenters of stage work.

Haimes opened Roundabout’s first Broadway home at the Criterion Center in 1991, and saw such early triumphs as Anna Christie, starring Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson, and New York’s first revival of She Loves Me, both in 1993. With the $24-million capital campaign to renovate 42nd Street’s historic Selwyn Theatre, the Roundabout took possession of what is now its primary Broadway home, the American Airlines Theatre.

Among the Roundabout’s greatest successes was the 1998 revival of Cabaret directed by Sam Mendes and co-directed and choreographed by Rob Marshall. After a construction accident suddenly shuttered the environmental space where Cabaret was playing, Haimes set about renovating the former dance club Studio 54, where Cabaret went on to run until 2003. During its run, Roundabout negotiated the purchase of the space, making it the company’s second Broadway venue.

At Studio 54, Haimes produced such hits as Assassins (2004) and Kiss Me, Kate (2019).

In 2009, Roundabout took over the operation of Broadway’s Henry Miller Theatre, renaming it the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, where Haimes produced such hits as the Tony-winning Anything Goes (2011). The venue currently is home to the hit musical & Juliet.

Born in New York City, Haimes graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University School of Management. He is survived by wife Jeanne-Marie Haimes; daughter Hilary Haimes and her husband Jonathan Salik; son Andrew Haimes and his wife Stacy Haimes; four grandchildren; and stepdaughters Julia and Kiki Baron.