Viertel is the creative director of Rocco Landesman's Jujamycn theater chain, artistic director of Encores!, and the little brother of big-time Broadway producer Tom Viertel.

Viertel comes from a family with a long history in theater—his grandfather built theaters like the Mark Hellinger, his father was a playwright, and his brother is Tom Viertel, a partner in the Broadway powerhouse Richard Frankel Productions. After Harvard, Jack moved to California, working as a theater critic for a free weekly, then for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He transitioned from writing about theater to working in the biz when he was appointed dramaturg of the storied Mark Taper Forum in LA in 1985. Two years later, Rocco Landesman—who was familiar with Viertel because of an earlier (negative) review he'd written of his musical Big River—hired him as creative director of Jujamcyn, the third biggest Broadway theater chain. In 1988, Viertel cemented his own reputation in the industry—as well as Jujamycn's—by bringing David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly to Jujamycn.

In 2001, Viertel made an ill-fated foray into libretto-writing, writing the book for Time and Again, a musical produced by his brother Tom; Times critic Ben Brantley called the result "static and passionless." The same year he added another job to his resume, replacing Kathleen Marshall to become artistic director of non-profit Encores!, which puts on three vintage musicals a season.

Jack and his wife, Linda, have two grown children, Josh and Daisy. [Image via Getty]