Lonny Price
Lonny Price (born March 9, 1959) is an American director, actor, and writer, primarily in theatre. He is best known for his New York directing work, including Sunset Boulevard, Sweeney Todd, Company, and Sondheim! The Birthday Concert. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his creation of the role of Charley Kringas in the Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along, Neil Kellerman in Dirty Dancing, and Ronnie Crawford in The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Lonny Price
March 9, 1959
Theatre/film/television director, actor, writer
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
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.[1] Price grew up in Fresh Meadows, New York and Metuchen, New Jersey.[2] He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, and the Juilliard School, which he only attended for a year in order to begin pursuing acting professionally.[3]
Acting career[edit]
His early career was spent performing in Off-Broadway productions, including Class Enemy in 1979, for which he won a Theater World Award for outstanding stage debut.[4]
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. His next show, 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 - ran for eight months.
Possibly his most significant Off-Broadway stage credit as an actor is the William Finn – James Lapine musical Falsettoland as Mendel in 1990.[5]
Price's film and television credits include major supporting roles in The Muppets Take Manhattan and Dirty Dancing, and guest appearances on The Golden Girls and Law & Order, among others.
In 1989, he appeared as Jimmy Durante in the musical biography Durante.[6]