Scott Sanders

Scott Sanders (born 1957) is an American television producer, film producer and theatre producer.

Sanders grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida and was a 1975 graduate of Gibbs High School in Pinellas County, Florida, which at the time was undergoing court-ordered desegregation, and to which he was bused.

He was Class President at Gibbs.

He was Executive Producer there for 15 years and has been credited with reversing the venue's steady decline after its near-bankruptcy in 1978 and turning it into one of the highest grossing theaters in the world.

He is a 1979 graduate of the University of Florida.

During college he worked as an intern in the advertising department of the St. Petersburg Times.

Sanders began his career at Radio City Music Hall in New York, producing artists including Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, K.D. Lang, Madonna, Bette Midler, Richard Pryor, Lionel Richie, Liza Minnelli, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner, Liberace, Sting, Diana Ross, and The Grateful Dead.

Critics, in widely positive reviews, praised the contemporary updates that the stage musical's creative team have made to the 1982 movie comedy.

Variety wrote, "This bouncy musical turns the story into a full-on satire of the narcissistic male ego.

Chicago Tribune wrote, "Very Funny...a boffo musical comedy with comic characters as outlandishly successful as The Producers."

He made his first foray into Broadway while still at Radio City, producing An Evening with Harry Connick, Jr. and his Orchestra in 1990.

For Radio City Music Hall Productions, Sanders also produced rock concerts and popular cultural events outside of the venue including Penn and Teller's NBC special Don't Try This At Home, and inaugural anniversary gala for President Bill Clinton and the historic 1993 Super Bowl halftime show starring Michael Jackson on NBC.

It was 1993 that Sanders' bold reformatting of the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show, starring Jackson, raised NBC's halftime rating higher than the Super Bowl action before it.

Sanders' reconstituted show is credited with transforming the way the NFL presents its halftime entertainment.

In the years since, the NFL has, at every single Super Bowl, followed the model Sanders & Jackson created in 1993 enlisting big-name, contemporary, broad-appeal artists to perform during halftime in an effort to keep viewers from straying.

In 1996, Sanders co-founded Mandalay Television, along with Mandalay Entertainment Chairman Peter Guber.

and executive produced six network series, including include Young Americans, Cupid, Mercy Point, and Rude Awakening.

In 2001, Sanders launched Creative Battery, a multimedia production company in partnership with AEG presents, which was responsible for solo Broadway shows by Elaine Stritch and the Barry Humphries character Dame Edna.

He returned to Broadway as an independent producer in 2002 with Elaine Stritch at Liberty.

Other Broadway work includes Dame Edna Back with a Vengeance (2004), The Color Purple (2005), The Pee-wee Herman Show (2010), Evita (2012), After Midnight (2013) and the Color Purple revival (2015).

His theatrical musical version of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple, for which he was a lead producer alongside co-producers Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones, premiered on Broadway in 2005, garnering 11 Tony Award Nominations including Best Musical.

While at Creative Battery, Sanders also served Executive Producer for Queen Latifah's jazz album, The Dana Owens Album, which received a 2005 Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album

In 2007 he founded Scott Sanders Productions, a film and theatrical production company based in New York City with funding for theatrical ventures from a private equity group which includes New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Roy Furman, and Jim Fantaci.

On the film side, Scott Sanders Productions entered into a five-year first-look feature deal with Disney.

In August 2012, the company signed a subsequent five-year deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment to develop and produce live versions of Sony films.

Sanders and Ahmet Zappa co-produced a film written and directed by Peter Hedges, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, released by Walt Disney Pictures on August 15, 2012.

In August 2012 Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sanders agreed to mount stage productions of Sony films and announced that Tootsie, the 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman, would be the first project.

In 2013, Sanders and Mara Jacobs began working on a film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights, with a script written by Quiara Alegría Hudes, who authored the book for the original stage version.

He also produced the 2016 Broadway revival of The Color Purple which went on to win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album.

He won his Emmy and first Tony Award for his work as the producer of Elaine Stritch at Liberty.

In September 2016, Sanders was named the creative head of global entertainment for Westfield Corporation, which confirmed its acquisition of Scott Sanders Productions.

In October 2018, he relaunched Scott Sanders Productions as an independent theatre, film, television, music, live-event and experiential entertainment production company, with offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Sanders serves as president and CEO.

In November 2018, Warner Bros. announced the development of a film adaptation of the Color Purple musical, co-produced by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones, and Sanders.

The new comedy musical Tootsie opened its pre-Broadway world premiere engagement at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre on September 30, 2018.

In 2018, Sanders, along with co-producers Jacobs, Miranda and Anthony Bregman, closed a $50 million deal with Warner Bros. for the film rights.

The property has been the subject of a hot auction after it was extracted from The Weinstein Company ahead of its bankruptcy.

His musical comedy adaptation of the film Tootsie premiered on Broadway to positive reviews in the Spring of 2019.

He is also known for his impresario role at Radio City Music Hall and for his work on numerous globally televised live events, including the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show starring Michael Jackson at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.

The production begins performances on Broadway on March 29, 2019, at the Marquis Theatre and officially opens on April 23, 2019.