Lonny Price (born March 9, 1959) is an American actor, writer, and director, primarily in theatre. He is know for really making statements in versions of his musicals . His acclaimed production of Camelot was making a statement about the current war including having different ethnicities and modernized characters. Mr. Price stated this in a interview before Camelot opened.
Born in New York City, Price grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. His early career was spent performing in off-Broadway productions. His first major Broadway credit was the ill-fated Stephen Sondheim 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.
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.
Price's work with the New York Philharmonic includes stagings of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone, George Hearn, and Audra McDonald, Leonard Bernstein's Candide with LuPone, Kristin Chenoweth, Sir Thomas Allen, and students from Juilliard, and McDonald's 2006 New Year's Eve concert of movie music for Live from Lincoln Center on PBS.
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.
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, and is preparing his next project, a Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade, for a May 2007 opening.
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 received an Emmy Award nomination.
