Who

One of Broadway's most prolific producers, Roth has put up the money to stage shows like Wit, Proof, Caroline, or Change and The Year of Magical Thinking. Not coincidentally, she's also the wife of real estate billionaire Steve Roth.

Backstory

A native of Wayne, NJ and the daughter of a Chevrolet dealer, Roth developed a taste for drama during her childhood years: She was the captain of her high-school flag-twirling team. But she didn't turn to a career in theater until later in life. During her 20s and 30s, she lived in Ridgewood, New Jersey raising her two kids and working part-time as an interior decorator. In 1988, after attending a cabaret show in Manhattan featuring the songs of David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr., she decided to produce it as a revue. Thanks to plenty of financial backing from her hubby, she soon turned to larger productions, and saw success more or less immediately when four of her early plays—Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, How I Learned to Drive, Wit and Proof—went on to win Pulitzers. (She also backed the occasional misfire: Defying Gravity, a disconcertingly whimsical take on the Challenger explosion, was excoriated by critics.) She expanded her reach in 1997 when she acquired an old bank building in Union Square and turned it into the Daryl Roth Theater, which for its first six years of existence housed the high-octane Argentinean acrobatics act De La Guarda. In 2002, she opened a more indie venue within the Union Square complex called DR2. In 2006 she added yet another space, a 75-seat cabaret called D-Lounge.

Of note

Roth is known for backing fare that's serious but still accessible to wide audiences and capable of making a buck or two (although, in the notoriously unlucrative theater production business, sometimes plays do literally make just a buck or two.) Plays/musicals in which she's had a hand in recent years include The Allergist's Wife; Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change; Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?; and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, directed by David Hare. In late 2007 the Argentinean troupe behind De La Guarda returned to the Daryl Roth Theater for a similarly circus-like follow-up show called Fuerzabruta.

Board game

A major board presence in the city, Roth sits on the boards of Lincoln Center Theater, the LAByrinth Theater Company, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Sundance Institute.

Personal

Daryl's husband, Steve Roth, is the chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust. Their son Jordan Roth is following in mom's footsteps—he's a theater producer and vice president at Rocco Landesman's Jujamcyn theater chain. (His recent credits include Radio Golf and Curtains, as well as the long-running but now-defunct off-Broadway Donkey Show.) The couple also has a daughter, Amanda Salzhauer, a social worker. The Roths live at 770 Park in a 7,000-square-foot apartment they purchased for $25 million in 2003; the apartment previously belonged to Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli. In 2009, they also paid $9.41 million for Bernie Madoff's former estate in Montauk.

No joke

Roth thanks her pooches in all her Playbill bios and has paid to dedicate a bench to them in Central Park. The inscription reads: "Leo and Lucy Roth, my wonderful and adoring pals, I love sharing the park with you."