Allan Gruet

Allan passed on January 9th. Original Broadway cast of The Rothschilds. Replacement original company of Fiddler on the Roof. Broadway Westchester, SAG-AFTRA.

Allan was my next door neighbor for the last 15 years in Sunnyside, Queens. He was a proud member of the union and we would love to chat about the theatre all the time. He loved his Hungarian Sheep Dog, Remy Martin.

— Jonathan A. Perez

Peter Kybart

The world has lost a beautiful soul. On February 5, 2026, the actor Peter Kybart died peacefully in his sleep at the Actor’s Fund Home in Englewood, NJ. He had suffered a stroke and had ongoing struggles with cancer. In his 86 years he met the world with kindness. It was present in his eyes that twinkled, in his voice that purred, his ever-expanding heart and his ability to make connections with strangers. There was a playfulness inside Peter that was joyfully defiant. He had a tremendous ability to access his emotions. He had a patience about him that could hold the profound. He read voraciously and loved to hang at a coffee shop in the Village and drink a latte and nibble on a pastry.

Peter Kybart-Smith was born December 7, 1939 in Berlin, Germany to Mrs. Anneliese and Mr. Willy Kybart in the midst of WWII. From age 3 to age 5, he lived in a Polish orphanage to avoid starvation and later as an older child, he bravely fled East Berlin with his mother for West Berlin. Peter had a profound understanding for the effects that war has on children. His sensitivity to this lasted a lifetime and resonated in his work and his ability to connect on a deep level with individuals and their stories about war and poverty.

He attended London’s Webber Douglas School of Drama and left early to tour with Zoe Caldwell in St. Joan for 18 months in Australia. Then moved to NYC and landed a gig at The McCarther. He bounced around regional theaters in the US throughout the 60s and early 70s. He then returned to Germany to work in film, tv, radio and the stage for 14 years. In the mid 80s, he came back to live in the States for good. His career included the Broadway productions of Awake and Sing, Judgement at Nuremberg, and The Diary of Anne Frank where he went on as Otto Frank; original cast David Ives’ The Metromaniacs; Lear and Scrooge regionally; many roles in TV and Film, most notably as the Mayor of NYC in Spike Lee’s Inside Man. He will be dearly missed.

— Debra Funkhouser