Lonny Price
Encyclopedia
Lonny Price is an American actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, and director, primarily in theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

. He is known for making statements on current events in versions of his musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

. His acclaimed May 2008 New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

 production of Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....

was making a statement about the current war including having different ethnicities and modernized characters. Mr. Price stated this in an interview before Camelot opened.

Early life and career

Born in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Price grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey
Metuchen, New Jersey
Metuchen is a Borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States, which is 8 miles northeast of New Brunswick, 18 miles southwest of Newark, 24 miles southwest of Jersey City, and 29 miles southwest of Manhattan, all part of the New York metropolitan area...

. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts
High School of Performing Arts
The High School of Performing Arts, more formally known as The School of Performing Arts: A Division of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, informally known as "PA", was a public alternative high school in New York, New York, USA that existed from 1948 through...

. His early career was spent performing in off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 productions. His first major Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 credit was the ill-fated Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

 musical Merrily We Roll Along
Merrily We Roll Along (musical)
Merrily We Roll Along is a musical with a book by George Furth and lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. It is based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart....

(1981), which underwent constant changes during an unusually long preview period and closed after only sixteen performances. He had better luck with his next project - the Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...

 play MASTER HAROLD...and the Boys
Master Harold...and the Boys
Master Harold...and the boys is a play by Athol Fugard. It was first produced at the Yale Repertory Theatre in early 1982 and made its premiere on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on 4 May where it ran for 344 performances...

, in which he portrayed a South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n student opposite Danny Glover
Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover is an American actor, film director, and political activist. Glover is perhaps best known for his role as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise.-Early life:...

 and Zakes Mokae
Zakes Mokae
Zakes Makgona Mokae was a South African-born American actor.-Life and career:Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to Great Britain in 1961, and to the United States in 1969. He turned to acting at the same time as playwright Athol Fugard was emerging...

 as the family servants - which ran for eight months.

In 1989, he appeared as Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...

 in the musical bio DURANTE. It was playing in San Francisco during the earthquake. Excellent in the role but Durante's life was uneventful and the musical closed on the road.

Direction

Price made his directorial debut with the off-Broadway revival of The Education of H* Y* M* A* N K* A* P* L* A* N
Hyman Kaplan
Hyman Kaplan, or H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N as he habitually signs himself, is a fictional character in a series of well-received, humorous stories by Leo Rosten, under the pseudonym "Leonard Q...

, followed by The Rothschilds and Juno
Juno (musical)
Juno is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein and book by Joseph Stein, based closely on the 1924 play Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey. The original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, on March 9, 1959.Despite light moments, the musical,...

, both of which received Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Revival. His most significant off-Broadway performing credit is the William Finn
William Finn
William Alan Finn is an American composer and lyricist of musicals. His musical Falsettos received the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Music and Lyrics and for Best Book.-Biography:...

 – James Lapine
James Lapine
James Lapine is an American stage director and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.-Biography:Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated...

 musical Falsettoland
Falsettoland
Falsettoland is a musical with a book by James Lapine and music and lyrics by William Finn.Following In Trousers and March of the Falsettos, it is the third in a trio of one-act musicals centering on Marvin, his wife Trina, his psychiatrist Mendel, his son Jason, and his gay lover Whizzer Brown...

.

He has also directed numerous musical productions, both concert and non-concert, with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, which include Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

's Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

 and George Hearn
George Hearn
George Hearn is an American actor and singer, primarily in Broadway musical theatre.-Early years:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hearn studied philosophy at Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College before he embarked on a career in the theater, training for the stage with actress turned acting...

, for which he won an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

's Candide
Candide
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...

, with Kristin Chenoweth
Kristin Chenoweth
Kristin Chenoweth is an American singer and actress, with credits in musical theatre, film and television. She is best known on Broadway for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown , for which she won a Tony Award, and for originating the role of Glinda in the musical...

, Sir Thomas Allen
Thomas Allen (singer)
Sir Thomas Boaz Allen, CBE is an internationally renowned English operatic baritone. He is widely admired in the opera world for his voice, the versatility of his repertoire, and his acting - leading many to regard him as one of the best lyric baritones of the late 20th Century...

, Patti LuPone, and students from Juilliard and the Westminster Choir College
Westminster Choir College
Westminster Choir College is a residential college of music, part of Rider University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.Westminster Choir College educates men and women at the undergraduate and graduate levels for musical careers in music education, voice performance, piano...

 Symphonic Choir, Passion
Passion (musical)
Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...

with Patti LuPone, Camelot
Camelot
Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world...

 with Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...

, Marin Mazzie
Marin Mazzie
Marin Joy Mazzie is an American actress and singer known for her work in musical theater. She was nominated for the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Olivier Award for her role as Lilli/Katharine in Kiss Me, Kate, and won the Outer Critics Circle Award...

, Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...

, and Nathan Gunn
Nathan Gunn
Nathan Gunn is an operatic baritone from the United States.He has appeared in many of world's well-known opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera,...

, amongst other productions. In March 2010, he conceived and directed Sondheim! The Birthday Concert Live at Carnegie Hall, celebrating the famed composor-lyricist's 80th Birthday. The television broadcast was nominated for several Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

s, and Mr. Price won for 'Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special'. April 2011 found him directing an acclaimed concert production of Sondheim's Company
Company (musical)
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

with Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris is an American actor, singer, director, and magician.Prominent roles of his career include the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D., Colonel Carl Jenkins in Starship Troopers, the womanizing Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, a fictionalized version of himself in the Harold...

, Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...

, Martha Plimpton
Martha Plimpton
Martha Campbell Plimpton is an American actress and singer and former model. Plimpton is a screen, stage and television actress. She first appeared as Jonsy in the feature film River Rats before rising to prominence in the Richard Donner film The Goonies portraying the character Stef...

, Christina Hendricks
Christina Hendricks
Christina Rene Hendricks is an actress known for her role as Joan Holloway in the AMC cable television series Mad Men, and as Saffron in Fox's short-lived series Firefly. Hendricks was named "the sexiest woman in the world" in 2010 in a poll of female readers taken by Esquire magazine.-Personal...

, and Patti LuPone
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

, backed by the New York Philharmonic.

He has also directed numerous productions at the Chicago Ravinia Festival, including Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...

, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park With George
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...

, Anyone Can Whistle
Anyone Can Whistle
Anyone Can Whistle is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The story concerns a corrupt mayoress, an idealistic nurse, a man who may be a doctor, and various officials, patients and townspeople, all fighting to save a bankrupt town...

, Passion
Passion
-Emotion:* Passion * Passions , emotional states as used in philosophical discussions* Stoic Passions, various forms of emotional suffering in Stoicism-Crucifixion of Jesus Christ:...

, and Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun may refer to:*Annie Get Your Gun , a 1946 musical play*Annie Get Your Gun , a 1950 film version of the 1946 musical*Annie Get Your Gun , 1946, with Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton...

. Frequent collaborators for his productions include Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

-winning performers Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald
Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...

, Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris is an American singer, guitarist and actor. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion...

, and George Hearn, and legendary musical director and conductor Paul Gemignani
Paul Gemignani
Paul Gemignani is an award-winning American musical director with a career on Broadway and West End theatre spanning over thirty years.-Life and career:...

.

In 2000, Price co-wrote, directed, and starred in A Class Act
A Class Act
A Class Act is a musical with a book by Linda Kline and Lonny Price and music and lyrics by Edward Kleban. The musical is based on the life of composer-lyricist Ed Kleban, who died at the age of 48 in 1987...

, based on the life and career of composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 – lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...

 Edward Kleban
Edward Kleban
Edward “Ed” Kleban was an American musical theatre composer and lyricist.Kleban was born in the Bronx, New York in 1939 and graduated from New York's High School of Music & Art and Columbia University, where he attended with future playwright Terrance McNally. Kleban is best known as lyricist of...

, whose sole Broadway credit was A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....

. The score consisted of songs Kleban had written for other shows that remained unproduced. After a two month run at the Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed...

, it transferred to the Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre (New York)
The Ambassador Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 219 West 49th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp for the Shuberts, the structure is unusual in that it is situated diagonally on its site to fit the maximum number of...

, where it fared less successfully and closed after three months. It earned Price his sole Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nomination to date, for Best Book of a Musical. The show was also nominated for four other Tony Awards, including Best Musical. He also directed a Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade
110 in the Shade
110 in the Shade is a musical with a book by N. Richard Nash, lyrics by Tom Jones, and music by Harvey Schmidt.Based on Nash's 1954 play The Rainmaker, it focuses on Lizzie Curry, a spinster living on a ranch in the American southwest, and her relationships with local sheriff File, a cautious...

at the Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...

 in 2007, starring Audra McDonald..

Price served as Associate Artistic Director for the American Jewish Theatre from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. He currently is resident director at Musical Theatre Works, the only non-profit theatre dedicated solely to the development of new musicals.

Acting credits

Price's limited film and television credits include small roles in The Muppets Take Manhattan
The Muppets Take Manhattan
The Muppets Take Manhattan is the third of a series of live-action musical feature films starring Jim Henson's Muppets, and also the final film before Henson's death. This film was produced by Henson Associates and TriStar Pictures, and was filmed on location in New York City during the summer of...

and Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the lead roles, as well as Cynthia Rhodes and Jerry Orbach...

and guest appearances on The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris, which originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show centers on four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida...

and Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...

. Behind the scenes, he was a staff director for the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 soap opera One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...

, for which he was part of a team that received a Daytime Emmy Award
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...

 nomination for Outstanding Drama Series Directing in 1995.

Broadway credits

  • 2007: 110 in the Shade
    110 in the Shade
    110 in the Shade is a musical with a book by N. Richard Nash, lyrics by Tom Jones, and music by Harvey Schmidt.Based on Nash's 1954 play The Rainmaker, it focuses on Lizzie Curry, a spinster living on a ranch in the American southwest, and her relationships with local sheriff File, a cautious...

    (director)
  • 2005: Children and Art (performer)
  • 2003: "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys. (director)
  • 2003: Urban Cowboy
    Urban Cowboy (musical)
    Urban Cowboy is a musical with a book by Aaron Latham and Phillip Oesterman and a score composed of numbers by Broadway composer-lyricists Jeff Blumenkrantz and Jason Robert Brown and a variety of country music tunesmiths, including Clint Black and Charles Daniels.Based on the 1980 screenplay by...

    (director)
  • 2001: A Class Act
    A Class Act
    A Class Act is a musical with a book by Linda Kline and Lonny Price and music and lyrics by Edward Kleban. The musical is based on the life of composer-lyricist Ed Kleban, who died at the age of 48 in 1987...

    (director, writer, star)
  • 1994: Sally Marr...and Her Escorts (co-writer with Joan Rivers
    Joan Rivers
    Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...

     and Erin Ladd Sanders; director)
  • 1987: Broadway (actor - play)
  • 1986: Rags
    Rags (musical)
    Rags is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and music by Charles Strouse.-Production history:The Broadway production opened on August 21, 1986 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre with little advance sale and to mostly indifferent reviews, and it closed after only four...

    (actor)
  • 1987: Dirty Dancing (Neil Kellerman) (actor)
  • 1981: Merrily We Roll Along
    Merrily We Roll Along
    Merrily We Roll Along is a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It concerns a man who has lost the idealistic values of his youth. Its innovative structure presents the story in reverse order, with the character regressing from a mournful adult to a young man whose future is filled with...

    (performer)
  • 1981: The Survivor (performer)

External links

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