Ted Chapin is president of Rodgers & Hammerstein (a division of Imagem), a position he has held for 30 years. He has spearheaded many a Broadway production during his tenure, the most recent of which is Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, the first time the 1957 CBS television-commissioned show has been seen on Broadway, and in a newly adapted version. In addition to managing the works of Rodgers and/or Hammerstein, the company has taken on the representation of other writers, ranging from Irving Berlin to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
His career began as production or directorial assistant for the Broadway productions of Follies, The Rothschilds, and The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, as well as Leonard Bernstein’s Mass at the Kennedy Center, and Candide in San Francisco. As associate to Alan Arkin, he was the assistant director on the original Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys and the CBS television special of George Furth’s Twigs, starring Carol Burnett.
He has been a visiting lecturer at several universities and colleges, including Yale, New York University, Lawrence University, Belmont University, and St. Catherine’s College in Oxford. His book, Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies, was published in 2003 and won an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award and a Special Jury Prize for Distinguished Achievement by the Theatre Library Association.
Ted serves on several boards including the American Theatre Wing, where he was chair for four years, Goodspeed Musicals, New Music USA, and New York City Center, where he was the originating chair of the Encores! Advisory committee. He holds emeritus status on the board of Connecticut College, served as a Tony Awards nominator for two seasons and is currently a member of the Tony Administration and Management Committees. Ted has been honored by the Astaire Awards, Career Bridges, and received the New York City Center’s Leonard Harris Award. This year he received the UJA’s Excellence in Theatre Award. His oddest job yet was as the musical director of Gertrude Stein and Virgin Thompson’s opera Four Saints In Three Acts as performed by the National Theater of the Deaf.
He has moderated many episodes of The American Theatre Wing’s Working In The Theater television program, and has been interviewed for various documentaries including Out Of His Dreams, a current PBS special on Oscar Hammerstein II. He hosted a series of American Songbook television shows from NJPAC and has curated two Lyrics and Lyricists evening, Stage Door Canteen: Broadway Responds to World War II as part of the 2011 season and Getting To Know You: Rodgers & Hammerstein this season.
