For the Roth Family, Love Is About the Right to Choose Your Own Story
Hearts broken open. This is the phrase I hear when I think about Jordan Roth and Richie Jackson. And about their boys, Jackson and Levi, as well as the extended family that surrounds them, a solar system encompassing the worlds of theater, TV, publishing, real estate, and philanthropy. At its center is the preternatural kindness you feel in their presence.
The first question Jordan and Richie ask when considering a creative project is how will it make people feel?
As president of Jujamcyn Theatres, Jordan has produced Bullets Over Broadway, Kinky Boots, Angels in America, this year’s Tony winner Hadestown, and Moulin Rouge!. Being Jordan’s date to a Broadway premiere—as I have been—is like walking into the Oscars on the arm of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Cate Blanchett combined. When I heard he was bringing Bruce Springsteen to Broadway in 2017, I told him I didn’t understand the music. And he said, gently, “Love, it’s not just about the music.” He was right.
When Jordan and Richie met, an early theme of their relationship was this exchange: “It’s complicated” (Jordan’s fear), then “It’s worth it” (Richie’s certainty). Eventually the latter lapped the former. As artists they know risk is implicit in the really big wins.
It could be something Jordan got from his mother Daryl Roth, the 10-time Tony-winning producer who is bringing Jagged Little Pill to Broadway this fall. (His dad, developer Steven Roth, certainly knows it too.) Jordan has a pillow in his office embroidered with “Complicated/Worth It.”
And a chapter in Richie’s memoir, Gay Like Me (out from HarperCollins in January), takes the phrase as its title. Structured as a letter to their elder son he book is a story of love in a time of clear, present danger to hard-won freedoms. Richie and Jordan are not only on the front line of telling stories that matter, they are on the front line of the activism ensuring every American’s right to choose their own story. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a family like that?
This story appears in the November 2019 issue ofTown & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
You Might Also Like
