Lonny Price to Direct Sleepless in Seattle: The Musical

Lonny Price will direct the world premiere of Sleepless in Seattle: The Musical, which as previously announced will be presented at The Pasadena Playhouse beginning June 2013.

Based on the popular film, the musical Shas a book by Jeff Arch, who penned the film’s original story and co-wrote the screenplay, sharing 1994 Oscar, BAFTA and WGA nominations with Nora Ephron and David Ward. Eric Stern will be the musical director, and a new team of lyricists and composers will be announced in the near future.

The show centers around Sam, a widower and single father. When Sam’s son, Jonah calls into a talk radio program looking for a new mother, Sam ends up getting on the phone and laments about his lost love. Thousands of miles away in Baltimore, Annie hears the program and immediately falls in love with Sam, despite the fact that she has never met him and that she is engaged to another man. Believing they are meant to be together, Annie sets out for Seattle to meet Sam, who, meanwhile, contends with an onslaught of letters from available women equally touched by his phone call.

Price’s Broadway directing credits include 110 in the Shade, ‘Master Harold’ … and the Boys, Sally Marr and Her Escorts, in Urban Cowboy, and A Class Act, for which he also co-wrote the book (with Linda Kline) and was nominated for a Tony Award. He most recently directed the stage and film version of the New York Philharmonic’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, and also directed the stage and filmed versions of his tribute to Stephen Sondheim, Sondheim: The Birthday Concert, for which he received the 2011 Emmy Award.