Broadway Retirements: Terry Byrne, Daniel Sullivan Announce Final Bows

Two high-profile theatrical retirements have been announced: Tony winner Daniel Sullivan has decided to end his directing career after an astonishing 55 years, while Off-Broadway legend Terry Byrne will leave the Westside Theatre after 36 years as its general manager.

Sullivan’s immediate retirement, at age 86, was announced by his longtime theatrical home, Manhattan Theatre Club. For MTC, he staged productions including David Auburn’s Summer, 1976 and Proof, for which he won a Tony; Donald Margulies’s Sight Unseen and Time Stands Still; David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole and Good People; and Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, among others.

His many Broadway directing credits include I’m Not Rappaport; The Heidi Chronicles; Conversations with My Father; The Sisters Rosensweig; Ah, Wilderness!; A Moon for the Misbegotten; Morning’s at Seven; Julius Caesar; The Merchant of Venice; and Glengarry Glen Ross. A longtime director of the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park, he finished his career this past summer with The Winter’s Tale.

Byrne’s retirement from the Westside Theatre comes at the end of this week. During her tenure there, she has shepherded more than 60 productions, including the long-running Little Shop of Horrors and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. She also served as associate producer of the New York productions of Trumbo, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Political Animal.

She began working Off-Broadway in 1984, first as a box office treasurer and later as a company manager. She spent three seasons with the Mirror Repertory Theatre and worked on Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Road to Mecca, and Closer Than Ever, among others. Byrne served on the Off-Broadway League’s Board of Directors for 27 years (1993–2020) and was the first female president in its history.

Sullivan was set to direct Montauk by David Hare this spring on Broadway but has since handed the play over to Jonathan Kent. Meanwhile, Byrne will be succeeded in her role by Dalton Zogleman, who has been with the Westside Theatre since 2018.