Paul Libin, a prolific producer and respected Broadway theater executive whose first major endeavor was an Off Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible,” which he staged in the ballroom of a Manhattan hotel in 1958, died on June 27 in Manhattan. He was 94.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his son, Charles.
In his nearly 70-year career, Mr. Libin ran Circle in the Square Theater with Theodore Mann, one of its founders, and together they produced more than 100 shows. Later, Mr. Libin was in charge of operations at Jujamcyn Theaters, the owner of several Broadway houses.
Rocco Landesman, the former president and owner of Jujamcyn, said Mr. Libin had a wall-penetrating voice, a forceful presence and enormous energy.
“I depended on Paul entirely,” Mr. Landesman said in an interview. “Someone had to run the company. But I wouldn’t describe his role as corporate. He was as likely to be climbing into the air-conditioning ducts at the St. James Theater as he was to be sitting at his desk. He came in every day with enthusiasm.”
That enthusiasm dated to Mr. Libin’s early days as an assistant to Jo Mielziner, a Tony-winning scenic designer and producer. When Mr. Mielziner produced the Broadway musical “Happy Hunting,” which opened in late 1956, he promoted Mr. Libin to stage manager.
In 1958, on his way to a dentist appointment, Mr. Libin passed the Hotel Martinique, on West 32nd Street near Broadway, and saw a sign advertising the ballroom’s availability. He thought of it as a space that he and the director Word Baker could turn into a theater-in-the-round for a production of “The Crucible,” the 1953 Tony-winning Broadway play about the Salem witch trials and an allegory of the McCarthy-era Red Scare.
“I talked to the manager of the hotel, a Mr. Foreman,” Mr. Libin said in an interview with The New York Times in 2013. “A really tough character. Used to carry a snub-nosed .38.”
Mr. Foreman was not enthused about Mr. Libin’s idea. But being overly confident, the 27-year-old Mr. Libin telephoned Mr. Miller’s agent to say, “We have the theater.”
The agent told him that Mr. Miller would have to see it.
When Mr. Miller showed up at the hotel with his wife, Marilyn Monroe, Mr. Foreman didn’t initially see her standing off to the side.
“I said, ‘I’d like you to meet his wife,’” Mr. Libin recalled telling Mr. Foreman. “When the guy turned, I thought he was going to melt right there. He could hardly speak.”
The hotel manager, gobsmacked, quickly agreed to a deal with Mr. Libin.
The Martinique Theater’s production of “The Crucible” was a big success; it closed after 571 performances, nearly three times the 197 the play had on Broadway.
Paul Libin was born on Dec. 12, 1930, in Chicago. His parents, Ely and Chaika (Belatzkin) Libin, were Russian immigrants who ran a grocery store.
In 1949, when he was about 19, he was studying international relations at the University of Illinois Chicago when he attended a production of Mr. Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” After he saw Thomas Mitchell, who was playing Willy Loman, leave the theater, he recalled saying, “Oh my God, Willy Loman is alive!” — as if to convey the magic of Mr. Mitchell’s performance and theater itself.
That performance made him want to become an actor. He transferred to Columbia University’s School of the Arts in 1951 and acted in summer stock before being drafted into the Army in 1953.
At Fort Hood, in Texas, he told his commanding officer that he had producing experience — he did not — and formed a theater group, turning one of the movie theaters on the base into a stage. After he was discharged in 1955, he completed his education at Columbia, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree the following year. One of his professors recommended him to Mr. Mielziner.
After the success of “The Crucible,” Mr. Libin produced more shows at the Martinique and at other theaters in the New York area, including children’s shows performed by his Peppermint Players repertory company.
His connection to Circle in the Square was forged in 1963, when Mr. Mann asked him about staging Luigi Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” at the Martinique Theater, which Mr. Libin was leasing.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we do it together?’ And we did,” Mr. Libin told Playbill in 2005.
Mr. Libin joined Circle that year as Mr. Mann’s co-producer and the company’s managing director at its theater in Greenwich Village (he would later hold the titles of producing director and president), and then at its larger venue on Broadway in 1972.
Their many shows included works by Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill, George Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward, Molière, Anton Chekhov and Tennessee Williams. In 1976, the theater received a special Tony Award for its first 25 years of quality productions.
“He was one of the old-timers who thought a producer had to do everything and anything to get the show on,” Susan Frankel, the chief executive of Circle in the Square, said in an interview. “He was extremely hands-on — and a handy man.”
Mr. Libin left Circle in the Square in 1990 to become executive vice president and producing director at Jujamcyn.
There, he shared nine competitive Tony Awards with the company’s team, for shows including “Kinky Boots” (2013), “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” (1993) and “Angels in America: Perestroika” (1994). In 2013, he received a Tony for lifetime achievement.
While at Jujamcyn for 27 years — and afterward — Mr. Libin consulted at Circle in the Square, Ms. Frankel said. They were recently on a pitch call with Tom Kirdahy, a lead producer of “Just in Time,” the new musical about the singer Bobby Darin, she added: “We both said yes without hesitation.”
Mr. Libin was also involved with various industry organizations, and was the president of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS for 24 years.
In addition to his son, Charles, Mr. Libin is survived by his wife, Florence (Rowe) Libin; his daughters, Claire and Andrea Libin; and three grandchildren.
In 1974, Mr. Libin had another encounter with Mr. Miller, shortly before a revival of “Death of a Salesman” was to open at Circle in the Square, with George C. Scott directing and playing Willy Loman. Mr. Scott proposed that Willy’s neighbors be Black, but Mr. Miller told Mr. Libin, “That’s not what I wrote.”
“I said, ‘Arthur, the world is changing; it’s a powerful component,’” Mr. Libin told The Times. Mr. Miller again balked, and Mr. Scott threatened to drop out of the play unless he relented.
“Ted Mann worked on George, and I worked on Arthur,” Mr. Libin recalled — and Mr. Miller gave in.
Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades.
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