Sonny Everett, who achieved his dream of becoming a Broadway producer only in the final decade of his life, died Sept. 30, 2009, in New York City. He was 72 years old. He was born on Aug. 31, 1937, in Fordyce, AR, to Jasper Horace Everett, a Ford dealer, and Corrine Henderson Everett, a school teacher. He graduated from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL in 1959, where he met his wife.

Mr. Everett spent the early years in the insurance and real estate industries. He moved to New York in 1987 in hopes of becoming a producer. He first collected some impressive Off-Broadway credits, tending toward new and occasionally daring works, including The Unexpected Man, Collected Stories, Vita and Virginia, Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Laramie Project, Gross Indecency and Shockheaded Peter.

His first taste of Broadway producing was the ill-starred 1996 Broadway musical State Fair, which was The Theater Guild's final Broadway venture and effectively sunk the famous organization. Mr. Everett helped produce the pre-Broadway national tour.

He returned to Broadway in 2003 as an associate producer of Avenue Q, which won that year's Tony Award for Best Musical, and thereafter enjoyed a winning streak. He was again associate producer on The Drowsy Chaperone, another hit, and was a lead producer on In the Heights, which won him another Tony Award. He frequently worked with fellow producers Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum.

Irving Berlin's White Christmas was an uncharacteristically safe bet for Mr. Everett, but it proved a solid holiday success. (The show is due to return this fall.) Mr. Everett's only Broadway misstep in the past decade was the flop High Fidelity.

He is survived by his son Anthony Mark Everett (Julie), daughter Henderson Everett Lee (Ben), Toni Everett and their grandchildren, Mathew and Isabelle Everett, and Bennett and Everett Lee.