Lonny Price

Early life and career

Price was born in New York City, the son of Edie L. (Greene), a merchandise manager, and Murray A. Price, a car leasing company owner. Price grew up in Fresh Meadows, New York and Metuchen, New Jersey. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, and The Juilliard School. His early career was spent performing in off-Broadway productions, including Class Enemy, for which he won a Theater World Award for newcomers. His first major Broadway credit was the ill-fated Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along (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 play "Master Harold"...and the Boys, in which he portrayed a South African student opposite Danny Glover and Zakes Mokae as the family servants - which ran for eight months.

In 1989, he appeared as Jimmy Durante 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, followed by The Rothschilds and Juno, both of which received Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Revival. His most significant off-Broadway performing credit is the William Finn – James Lapine musical Falsettoland.

He has also directed numerous musical productions, both concert and non-concert, with the New York Philharmonic, which include Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone and George Hearn, for which he won an Emmy Award, Leonard Bernstein's Candide, with Kristin Chenoweth, Sir Thomas Allen, Patti LuPone, and students from Juilliard and the Westminster Choir College Symphonic Choir, Passion with Patti LuPone, Camelot with Gabriel Byrne, Marin Mazzie, Christopher Lloyd, and Nathan Gunn, amongst other productions. In March 2010, he conceived and directed Sondheim! The Birthday Concert Live at Carnegie Hall, celebrating the famed composer-lyricist's 80th Birthday. The television broadcast was nominated for several Emmy Awards, 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 with Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Christina Hendricks, and Patti LuPone, backed by the New York Philharmonic.

He has also directed numerous productions at the Chicago Ravinia Festival, including Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park With George, Anyone Can Whistle, Passion, and Annie Get Your Gun. Frequent collaborators for his productions include Tony Award-winning performers Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Michael Cerveris, and George Hearn, and legendary musical director and conductor Paul Gemignani.

In 2000, Price co-wrote, directed, and starred in A Class Act, based on the life and career of composer-lyricist Edward Kleban, whose sole Broadway credit was A Chorus Line. The score consisted of songs Kleban had written for other shows that remained unproduced. After a two-month run at the Manhattan Theatre Club, it transferred to the Ambassador Theatre, where it fared less successfully and closed after three months. It earned Price his sole Tony Award 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 at the Roundabout Theatre Company 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.

In 2016, Price directed the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, which chronicles the ill-fated journey of Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince's original 1981 Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along.

Acting credits

Price's limited film and television credits include small roles in The Muppets Take Manhattan and Dirty Dancing, and guest appearances on The Golden Girls and Law & Order. Behind the scenes, he was a staff director for the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, for which he was part of a team that received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series Directing in 1995.

Select credits