Lonny Price (born March 9, 1959) is an Americandirector,actor, andwriter, primarily intheatre. He is best known for his New York directing work, includingSunset Boulevard,Sweeney Todd,Company, andSondheim! The Birthday Concert. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his creation of the role of Charley Kringas in the Broadway musicalMerrily We Roll Along, Neil Kellerman inDirty Dancing, and Ronnie Crawford inThe Muppets Take Manhattan.

Price was born inNew York City, the son of Edie L. (Greene), a merchandise manager, and Murray A. Price, a car leasing company owner.^[1] Price grew up inFresh Meadows, New York andMetuchen, New Jersey.^[2] He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardiaHigh School of Performing Arts, and theJuilliard School, which he only attended for a year in order to begin pursuing acting professionally.^[3]

His early career was spent performing inOff-Broadway productions, includingClass Enemy in 1979, for which he won aTheater World Award for outstanding stage debut.^[4]

His first majorBroadway credit was the ill-fatedStephen Sondheim/Hal Prince/George Furth musicalMerrily We Roll Along (1981), which underwent constant changes during an unusually long preview period and closed after only sixteen performances. His next show, theAthol Fugard play"Master Harold"...and the Boys—in which he portrayed aSouth African student oppositeDanny Glover andZakes Mokae as the family servants—ran for eight months.^{[citation needed]}

Possibly his most significant Off-Broadway stage credit as an actor is theWilliam Finn –James Lapine musicalFalsettoland as Mendel in 1990.^[5]

Price's film and television credits include major supporting roles inThe Muppets Take Manhattan andDirty Dancing, and guest appearances onThe Golden Girls andLaw & Order, among others.^{[citation needed]}

In 1989, he appeared asJimmy Durante in the musical biographyDurante.^[6]

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Price made his directorial debut with the Off-Broadway revival ofThe Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N in 1989 for the American Jewish Theater,^[7] followed byThe Rothschilds andJuno, both of which receivedOuter Critics Circle nominations for Best Revival.

Price served as Associate Artistic Director for the American Jewish Theatre from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s.^[8] He was artistic director at Musical Theatre Works, anon-profit theatre dedicated solely to the development of new musicals until 2002, when he became resident director.^[9]

He was a staff director for theABC soap operaOne Life to Live, for which he was part of a team that received aDaytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series Directing in 1995.^[10]

He has directed numerous musical productions, both concert and non-concert, with theNew York Philharmonic, which includeStephen Sondheim'sSweeney Todd withPatti LuPone andGeorge Hearn in 2000,^[11] for which he won anEmmy Award,Leonard Bernstein'sCandide (2004), withKristin Chenoweth,Sir Thomas Allen, and Patti LuPone,Passion with Patti LuPone andAudra McDonald, which won anEmmy Award, andCamelot withGabriel Byrne,Marin Mazzie,Christopher Lloyd, andNathan Gunn, among other productions.

In 2000, Price co-wrote (with Linda Kline), directed, and starred inA Class Act, based on the life and career ofcomposer-lyricistEdward Kleban, whose sole Broadway credit wasA Chorus Line. The score consisted of songs Kleban had written for other shows that remained unproduced.^[12][13] After a two-month run at theManhattan Theatre Club, it transferred to theAmbassador Theatre, where it fared less successfully and closed after three months.^[13] It earned Price his soleTony Award nomination to date, for Best Book of a Musical. The show was also nominated for four other Tony Awards, including Best Musical.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, he directed a Broadway revival of110 in the Shade at theRoundabout Theatre Company, starringAudra McDonald. The play was nominated for the 2007 Tony Award, Best Revival of a Musical (among others).^[14]

In March 2010, he conceived and directedSondheim! The Birthday Concert at the New York Philharmonic, celebrating the composer-lyricist's 80th Birthday.^[15] The PBS television broadcast was nominated for severalEmmy Awards, and Price won for "Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special".

In April 2011, he directed an acclaimedconcert production of Sondheim'sCompany withNeil Patrick Harris,Stephen Colbert,Martha Plimpton,Christina Hendricks, and Patti LuPone, backed by the New York Philharmonic.^[16][17]

In 2013, he again directedSweeney Todd at the New York Philharmonic, this time starringEmma Thompson andBryn Terfel. The PBS telecast forLive from Lincoln Center won theEmmy Award for "Outstanding Variety, Music, Or Comedy Special".

He has directed numerous productions at the Chicago Ravinia Festival, includingSweeney Todd,Gypsy,Sunday in the Park With George,Anyone Can Whistle,Passion, andAnnie Get Your Gun. Frequent collaborators for his productions include performers Patti LuPone,Audra McDonald,Michael Cerveris, and George Hearn, and musical director and conductorPaul Gemignani.

He directed the 2014 Broadway production ofLady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill starring McDonald, who won her historic sixth Tony Award for her performance asBillie Holiday. He would subsequently stage the production in 2017 on the West End in London, again starring McDonald, as well as theHBO special. In 2016, he directed the acclaimed London revival ofSunset Boulevard starringGlenn Close, which transferred to Broadway and played a limited run in 2017.

In 2016, Price directed the documentaryBest Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, which chronicles the ill-fated journey ofStephen Sondheim andHarold Prince's original 1981 Broadway musicalMerrily We Roll Along. It played theNew York Film Festival, and was named one of the New York Times Top Ten Films of 2016.^[18][19]

His episodic television directing work includes five episodes ofDesperate Housewives and three episodes of2 Broke Girls.

In 2019, Price directed the Roundabout Theatre Company premiere of the musicalScotland, PA.^[20] Price is a guest instructor at HBHB Studio.^[21]

• Lonny Price atIMDb
• Lonny Price at theInternet Broadway Database
• Lonny Price at theInternet Off-Broadway Database

• American male musical theatre actors
• American male film actors
• American male television actors
• American theatre directors
• American musical theatre librettists
• 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
• People from Metuchen, New Jersey
• Singers from New York City
• 1959 births
• Living people
• Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School alumni
• Primetime Emmy Award winners

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