How Jordan Roth Went From Tony-Winning Producer to Performance Artist

“He’s so profoundly unserious right now,” says someone who’s known Roth for years, not hesitating to gossip about their charismatic friend anonymously.

As a producer, Roth wasn’t solely focused on the bottom line; he organized a Broadway fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and another for President Biden, and is quietly generous across a number of causes. He had a reputation for being both artist-friendly and aggressively advocating for shows he wanted. Roth was unusually dedicated to the tiny details too. At Jujamcyn he introduced smaller ice cubes that would melt faster to reduce clinking noises in the audience. For Mean Girls, he troubleshot long lines for women’s restrooms with ushers carrying signs that read “#FollowMe (I’m the line for the ladies’ room).” The work of a producer can be tedious; collaborators note that Roth’s approach has always been long on passion and short on complaining.

In 2023, Jujamcyn merged operations with Britain’s Ambassador Theater Group (now ATG Entertainment), where Roth remains a board member and creative director, presumably creating a windfall for him. Two years later he sold his former apartment in the West Village for a reported $20 million and acquired a town house that is decorated liberally with Braquenié’s Coromandel silk, which sells for around $600 per yard. He lives among paintings from Elizabeth Peyton, Francis Bacon, and John Singer Sargent; a Lalanne sculpture is currently on loan to The Met. He rechristened his 1899 home in the Hamptons, which was designed by the same architect who did nearby Grey Gardens, LoveLee, and has welcomed both Oprah Winfrey and Pete Buttigieg as guests.

It was also around this time when he started applying the same combination of money, vision, and passion that he brought to the theater to his fashion.

Until a decade ago, Roth sported a military-style buzz cut and usually wore a Prada suit in either gray, navy blue, or black with an untucked shirt, no tie, top button unbuttoned, and sneakers. In 2017, while working on upgrading the Tonys red carpet, Anna Wintour simply asked Vogue’s menswear editor, Michael Philouze, “Don’t you think Jordan should wear Gucci?” So off to Gucci the two men went. There, Roth was presented with two options: a maroon tuxedo and a cherry red silk suit with a tiger embroidered on the back. He put on the latter and it unlocked something in him, an almost macho approach to dressing, of winning at all costs. And he was willing to pay.

Designers quickly embraced him. “He understands that at the end of the day, you have to enjoy what you put on your body, and it has to have a sense of humor—he’s incredibly sarcastic,” says Fernando Garcia, the co–creative director at Monse. “There is never a heavy moment with Jordan. He can talk about politics to Love Island in one sentence.”