One of the biggest Broadway producers in the city and the man behind The Producers and Hairspray, Frankel heads up the theatrical production company that bears his name.

Brooklyn-born Frankel moved to Ethiopia for two years as a member of the Peace Corps after graduating from Brooklyn College. He returned to New York in 1970, landing his first job in theater as a carpenter and stage manager at the LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club, eventually becoming the managing director of Circle Repertory Company. Determined to work for himself, in 1985 he formed Richard Frankel Productions, taking on partners Marc Routh, Tom Viertel, and Steven Baruch soon after. Their first collaboration was the Broadway run of Penn & Teller, the rights to which Frankel owned via the Circle Repertory Company. In the two decades since, Richard Frankel Productions has been responsible for a list of Broadway mega-hits as long as your arm. The company has also branched out geographically, and now puts on shows in Las Vegas, London, and Asia.

As part of the team behind The Producers, Frankel helped usher in the era of exorbitantly high ticket prices, a gambit intended to ward off scalpers (it wasn't bad for publicity, or for RFP's coffers, either). The company's backed a slew of other successes over the years, including Driving Miss Daisy, Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune, Smoky Joe's Café, the Marc Shaiman-directed Hairspray and Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. [Image via Getty]