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Richard Winkler

Following a 35-year national and international career as a lighting designer for theatre, opera, ballet, and spectacle, Richard began producing for Broadway and the West End in 2009. Now with five Tony Awards, four Olivier Awards, the 2008 New York Musical Theatre Festival “Best of Fest,” and various Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards to his credit, Richard continues to focus on, in his words, “Theatre That Matters.”

​His five Tony Awards — two in one year — exemplify theatre at its most diverse: The Norman Conquests (Best Revival - Play); La Cage Aux Folles (Best Revival - Musical); Memphis, The Musical (Best Musical); Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Best Play); The Ferryman (Best Play). His productions currently running on Broadway show a similar range: from the breathtaking Come From Away, to the show-stopping jukebox musical Ain’t Too Proud, to the true story of the American Dream The Lehman Trilogy, and the bio-musical about the People’s Princess, Diana.
Other recent Broadway shows include the poignant and heartbreaking The Inheritance, the raw revival of Betrayal, The Cher Show, Be More Chill, the critically acclaimed Three Tall Women, starring Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalf (each won a Tony Award), Lynn Nottage’s Sweat (Pulitzer Prize Winner 2017), the Broadway transfer of the West End’s King Charles III (Tony Award nomination), the irreverent and hilarious Hand to God (Tony Award nomination), Disgraced (Tony Award nomination, Pulitzer Prize winner 2013); the revival of the comic You Can’t Take It With You (Tony Award nomination; starring James Earl Jones), Something Rotten (Tony Award nomination), Rodger’s + Hammerstein’s Cinderella (Tony Award nomination), Janis Joplin in Concert, A Little Night Music, Lend Me A Tenor, La Bête with Mark Rylance and David Hyde Pierce, Long Story Short with Colin Quinn, Catch Me If You Can, and Nice Work If You Can Get It.

Richard has also become a presence in London’s West End. Currently running is the premiere of Tom Stoppard's critically-acclaimed masterpiece Leopoldstadt, and Come From Away (Olivier Award - Best New Musical). Recent shows there have included The Jungle, The Inheritance (Olivier Award - Best New Play), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime, Home, I’m Darling (Olivier Award - Best New Play), Nine Night, The Lehman Trilogy, Dreamgirls, Hamlet (starring Andrew Scott), Memphis: The Musical, The Children’s Hour (starring Keira Knightley, Elizabeth Moss, Ellen Burstyn and Carol Kane), La Bête, Betrayal (starring Kristen Scott Thomas) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, starring David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf (Olivier Award - Best Revival of a Play).

Off-Broadway in 2016, Richard produced the two-person gem of a play I & You by Lauren Gunderson, and the critically acclaimed Turn Me Loose (starring Joe Morton), about the life of comic genius Dick Gregory. His National Tours include: Come From Away, Fiddler on the Roof, Hamilton, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The 39 Steps, and Memphis: The Musical. 

Richard has also worked at Dartmouth College as an adviser to the theatre department assisting with faculty development and conducting graduate student classes and mentorships. He has also made presentations on “the ins and outs” of Broadway Theatre to various investor groups.