"If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it proud of you … It may break your heart but it will fill your heart before it breaks it!" wrote the playwright Maxwell Anderson.

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So maybe you read it and maybe you didn’t, but the Bernie Madoff house in the Hamptons, the one with stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean and only 150 feet from the beach, was bought by billionaire property tycoon Steve Roth for around $9 million.

Mr. Roth is wed to Broadway producer Daryl Roth, a woman with numbers of Pulitzer Prize plays to her credit. Their heir to the throne, now in charge of Jujamcyn Theaters, is Jordan, age 33, and he is set to light bigger lights on the Great White Way.

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I sat down the other day in Michael’s booming restaurant to talk with this young head of the Jujamcyn Theaters. I asked the appealing Jordan Roth what he thought of his former partner, Rocco Landesman, being named head man as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jordan Roth is enthusiastic about the man who handed over the reins to him. "I believe he is going to be amazing. He has great style and passion. He can make a case for what he believes." When I mentioned that Landesman’s unorthodox approach to the arts had some of the D. C. Beltway seething, Jordan just laughed: "They’ll see. He’ll persevere and he’ll bring in fresh ideas. He is a shot in the arm for this new administration. He always said that optimism was the bedrock of the theater!"

Jordan himself is making his own kind of waves. He has "The Jersey Boys," a big, ongoing four-year hit on Broadway, as well as "Hair," making an unexpected comeback that is a comment on recent history. Jordan has other shows teetering on the edge of opening – "Finian’s Rainbow" this very night; "Fela!," his personal pet, which he describes as "Oh, it’s ‘dynamic and electric.’" This one opens Thanksgiving week; "A Little Night Music," the Stephen Sondheim masterpiece, to be brought back in the middle of November!

"What’s your philosophy for dealing with so much pressure all at once?" I ask. Jordan smiles and dismisses the idea that pressure bothers him: "I like theater that is essential, that just ‘has to be’ and it should be uniquely theatrical, using what is special about the theater. There are lots of ways to tell a story. The theater has a special way.

"I grew up in theater, as you know. My mother had been an interior designer but once she became a producer, I always had a front-row seat, age 13 on. So I grew up as a fan.

"Right now I have a show I just love, a takeoff on Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ It’s called ‘The Donkey Show’ and is being done by ART at Harvard."

I told Jordon I hadn’t really responded to "Hair" when it first opened. He was shocked. "But that’s what I mean by ‘uniquely theatrical,’ maybe now you will like it much more! The cast alone has become a tribe and they organized all of Broadway to get behind them when they went to Washington fighting for gay rights and against ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’"

I told Jordan I thought the producer’s life must be very iffy, ever teetering on the edge of the critics’ approval or the audience’s. He said, "But that’s show business. I really respond to the variety of shows we have on Broadway. This town is big enough for all the varieties to run. I find my job is nourishing. I want to also identify and support new ideas and new projects, along with revivals."