#Todd Haimes, Artistic Director and CEO of Roundabout Theatre Company, Dies at 66

Todd Haimes, the widely respected artistic director and CEO of Roundabout Theatre Company, has died. He was 66.

Haimes died in New York City from complications of osteosarcoma, his friend Matt Polk confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. Haimes had been living with cancer for a number of years.

During his 39-year tenure as the leader of Roundabout, Haimes led the organization from near bankruptcy and one 150-seat basement space in a Chelsea grocery store to a company operating five theaters in Manhattan, that is a major player in New York’s cultural scene and one of America’s largest and most influential not-for-profit theatre companies.

Under Haimes, Roundabout married commercial growth with stunning critical and awards success, with the company winning 38 Tony Awards, 59 Drama Desk Awards, 73 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 21 Lucille Lortel Awards, 14 Audelco Awards, 14 Obie Awards and 5 Olivier Awards under his tenure.

Bernard Todd Haimes was born on May 7, 1956, in New York City. His father Herman was a lawyer, and his mother Helaine was a homemaker. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor’s degree, and then went on to receive an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management.

Haimes joined the Roundabout in 1983, coming on board as managing director. The company was founded in 1965, but by the 1980s was treading water financially, racking up debts of $2.4 million while only operating the one rented space in Chelsea. Haimes stabilized the organization’s finances and with additional funding set about what was to become a spectacular turnaround in fortunes.

In 1989, at age 32, Haimes became Roundabout’s producing director, charged with running the artistic as well as the business side of the company. He opened Roundabout’s first Broadway theatre in 1991, the now-closed Criterion Center at Broadway and 45th Street and he was central to the company’s aggressive expansion in the 1990s. He spearheaded the multimillion-dollar renovation of the Selwyn Theatre, which would become Roundabout’s flagship American Airlines Theatre, home to classic Broadway plays and musicals. In 1998, Roundabout took over Broadway’s Henry Miller’s Theatre and reopened the venue as the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. Roundabout also renovated Studio 54 as a Broadway venue and took over the Laura Pels Theatre for Off-Broadway productions.

A massive expansion of Roundabout’s Broadway footprint coincided with a string of successes. The Criterion presented a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie in 1993, starring Liam Neeson and, in her Broadway debut, Natasha Richardson — the pair would win a Theatre World Award for their performances and would later go on to marry having met on the production. There was also the first New York revival of the musical She Loves Me (1993) and Sam Mendes-Rob Marshall’s acclaimed revival of Cabaret (1998), which saw Richardson play Sally Bowles.

Haimes opened the American Airlines Theatre in 2000 with The Man Who Came To Dinner, starring Nathan Lane. The company’s other notable Tony Award-winning and -nominated successes in the Haimes era include 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).

Survivors include his wife Jeanne-Marie; daughters Hilary, Julia and Kiki Baron; son Andrew; and grandchildren Corey, Josephine, Aiden and Alexander.