Jack W. Batman, Tony-Winning Broadway Producer, Dies at 81

Jack W. Batman, a Tony Award-winning producer whose prolific career brought more than 60 plays and musicals to stages around the world, died on Aug. 1 in Englewood, N.J. He was 81.

His husband, Sidney J. Burgoyne, confirmed the death, which occurred at the Actors Fund Home, where Mr. Batman had been in hospice care. The cause was pancreatic cancer, diagnosed earlier this year.

Over more than two decades in partnership with Bruce Robert Harris, Mr. Batman produced works that ranged from Broadway blockbusters to international tours. He earned Tony Awards for the Broadway productions of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park and the revival of Pippin, and was most recently nominated for New York, New York, his 13th Tony nomination.

The pair’s credits spanned continents and genres: Good Night, and Good Luck, starring George Clooney; John Proctor Is the Villain, with Sadie Sink; The Roommate, starring Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone; The Who’s Tommy; Magic Mike Live; Criss Angel Mindfreak; and Titanic the Musical. They also produced five original Broadway cast albums and served as executive producers on the award-winning film Daddy.

Jack William Batman was born on Oct. 4, 1944, in Camden, N.J., the eldest of two children of Ralph Batman, an employee at Standard Press Steel, and Kathryn Wallace Batman, vice president and manager of the Philadelphia Employees Credit Union. His love of theater began early, fostered by his mother, who took him to performances of all kinds, from high school operettas to professional musicals.

By high school, he was performing himself. Drawn to Broadway, he moved to New York City in 1969 — the same day the Mets clinched their first World Series title — and started in the mail room at the William Morris Agency. He became an agent, then moved through roles as a manager, casting director, actor, writer, and ultimately a celebrated producer.

In 1976, he met Mr. Burgoyne during a Scrabble game at a friend’s house. They had attended La Salle College in Philadelphia a decade apart, each active in the school’s theater program, but had never crossed paths. The two remained partners for nearly 50 years and were married on Aug. 13, 2013, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau.

Their personal and professional lives are often intertwined. When Mr. Burgoyne directed Ragtime at the White Plains Performing Arts Center, where Mr. Batman was executive producer, he gave his husband what he called “the hardest show” because, as he put it, “I trust him implicitly to do it well.”

At home, Mr. Batman was known for his culinary flair — “chemistry in the kitchen,” he called it — and his devotion to the couple’s many rescue animals, 13 cats and 7 dogs over the years. He and Mr. Burgoyne also traveled widely; last October, they took an impromptu trip to Paris and London.

Mr. Batman was working on upcoming productions until just days before his death. “All my life, in business and in my personal life, if a door opened, I walked through,” he said after receiving his diagnosis. “This is just one more door I’m walking through.”

In addition to Mr. Burgoyne, he is survived by cousins, brothers- and sisters-in-law, a godson, and many nieces, nephews, and friends. His parents and his brother, Ralph, died earlier.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Entertainment Community Fund and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.