Allen Whitehead

WHITEHEAD--Allen, Pioneer and Protector of Authors' rights dies. Allen Burke Whitehead died peacefully on Friday, February 29th, 2008. Allen was born July 17th, 1919 in Rocky Mount, NC. He attended The University of South Carolina before serving in the Navy from 1942-1946. On his way to Yale Drama School he was sidetracked in New York City to 'fill in' for a theatrical agent, never left, and joined Frank Loesser at nascent Music Theatre International (MTI) when the company was less than two years old. He stayed for 40 years. During that time he had close dealings with the great names of Broadway, representing the dramatic rights to some of the most successful musicals ever written: "Guys And Dolls", "Meredith Willson's The Music Man", "Fiddler On The Roof", "West Side Story", "Annie", "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum", "The Fantasticks" and hundreds of others. Allen's professional life was devoted to enhancing authors' rights and maximizing revenues to provide ongoing income streams to authors, their families and heirs. Allen developed inventive resources to help prolong the legacy of the works, including the printed notation of Jerome Robbins' original staging of "Fiddler On The Roof" (still used today by schools and theatres around the world). His spirit and memory is kept alive by his wife of 44 years, Rosemarie, and his children, Marc, daughter-in-law Lisa, and grandchildren Cooper and Gabrielle of Wilmington, NC and daughter Gabrielle Stevenson, son-in-law Doug and grandchildren Kendall, Brett, Hailey and Kyle of Southport, CT. Freddie Gershon and the MTI family mourn for him and his family and honor his memory and his life's work and mission every day at MTI.