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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggart, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: I often ask a client to consider what is fueling a drive within them. Is their energy supplied by fear, comparison to others, anxiety? Is it aided by a genuine desire for connection and doing good in the world? Often the answer is yes to all, a unique cocktail of good intent and survival instinct that combine into a far messier story than the one we'd prefer to tell about ourselves.

[0:42] Bobby Steggert: If you remember the very first episode of the podcast, Rory O'Malley and I talked about ambition, how it was the force that brought about success in an industry that much rewards risk-taking and attention-seeking, and how ambition, over time, can change with perspective. How the definition of success, God willing, can evolve into something that considers our softer impact on the world, our private sense of integrity and contribution, the joys of everyday pleasures that no one is there to witness.

[1:12] Bobby Steggert: We begin this year with one of my favorite humans on the planet. Lonny Price is Broadway royalty, an actor and now director who is an essential member of the Sondheim and Hal Prince legacy. I was fortunate enough to make my Broadway debut when I was 22 in the revival of the play Master, Harold, and the Boys that he directed. It was the same play that he starred in 20 years earlier, right on the heels of playing Charlie Gringas in the original production of Merrily We Roll Along. Over the years of my career, Lonny and I would work together several times, highlights of which were 110 in the Shade with Audra McDonald and Sondheim's 80th Birthday Concert. It was all so exciting and heady and life-changing, the opportunities that he gave me. And in terms of my ambition, he was central to fueling my career and helping it to grow.

[2:08] Bobby Steggert: And then there's a paradox that you'll hear in the following conversation. Over time, we simply became such good friends that working together became sort of a side note. From where I stand today, it is our sharing about the complexities of life that stand out as my favorite thing about Lonny. He's taught me so much, and it is our many conversations about the business, but everything outside of the business, too, that started my gears turning on finding my way towards the work that I do today. I'm really honored, really, to share his heart and wisdom and insight with all of you, and I hope for all of your sakes that you have a friend like Lonny in your life.

[2:57] Bobby Steggert: Most of all, I'm just excited that everyone that listens to this gets to know how much I love you.

[3:02] Lonny Price: I think that's the main goal here.

[3:04] Bobby Steggert: It's mutual. It's mutual.

[3:06] Bobby Steggert: So, your husband, Paul, who's also a social worker and a therapist, emailed me last summer saying, Lonny should do this, and I never wanted to push you, but I'm wondering why it feels like something you want to do.

[3:19] Lonny Price: I don't know. I think the last time we had dinner, just being with you and how much love I feel for you, and I don't know, because we know each other so well, that maybe something useful might be able to be revealed between us of our long-standing friendship and care of each other. So, I just thought, let's see what could happen, and I heard some of your podcasts, and I thought they were wonderful and smart and helpful. I guess I thought, sure, why not?

[3:52] Bobby Steggert: That's wonderful, and the idea that we might focus today on ambition is also meaningful to me because you've known all versions of me from very ambitious actor to very unambitious therapist, and that's not even true because, of course, I have different ambitions even now. But I remember early on when we became really good friends, you once said to me, if we had met and we were the same age, I'm not sure if we would be friends.

[4:19] Lonny Price: Yeah, yeah.

[4:20] Bobby Steggert: What did you mean by that?

[4:21] Lonny Price: I may have a falsely negative view of myself in my 20s. This is where ambition comes into it. I was just incredibly ambitious, so wanting to make a name for myself, wanting to do the kind of work that I love, frightened that I wouldn't be able to be successful enough to do the kind of work I wanted to do and have a life in the theater. I'm not sure how much I was smelling the roses. I think I was just paying a lot of attention to anything but trying to achieve something, and I think that made me not such an interesting person and maybe not such an aware or, I wouldn't say caring person, but I think I had an agenda that was very out of clock on it. I was just very nervous that I wasn't going to be able to be in the theater.

[5:17] Lonny Price: So the ambition was really driven by anxiety more than anything. I won't get there. I might not get there. I think the ambition was driven by a love of doing it, but there was also anxiety that I wouldn't be able to sustain it or that I wouldn't be able to get to a level where I could make a living consistently, could grow, be challenged, and get to do good material with good people. So all of that, I think the ambition was for something rather pure, but the anxiety to not be able to achieve that ambition was making me maybe not such a well-rounded, aware young man. Does that make any sense?

[6:01] Bobby Steggert: Of course, and then also there's the unique experience of growing up in downtown Manhattan and being steeped in it all. So I would love for you to talk about what it was to be a New Yorker and to see what you wanted to do right in front of you, and then also how family dynamics played into this.

[6:18] Lonny Price: You really do know me well, don't you, Bobby Steggert? We moved back to New York when I went to the high school of performing arts, the famed high school, and we lived in the village, and it was in the latter part of the 70s when New York was in default. So New York was a bit of a scary place. We lived on 8th Street and Broadway, and that's the N and the R train. Now the Q, and I don't even know what else it is, but if you missed a train, it was like 25 minutes to the next one. It wasn't good here, and there was just no money for anything. Everything had a lot of graffiti on it. It was not very safe. It's a darker time than it is now in New York City.

[6:59] Lonny Price: But yeah, performing arts high school across the street from the Laura Pels Theater. So it was on 46th Street between 6th and Broadway. So yeah, it was the middle of all of it, certainly all of the Broadway theater. We're just a block east of where Hamilton is now. Yeah, it was around me, and I was working for Hal Prince in his office after school, stuffing envelopes and writing to Sondheim. It was 24-7. It was all I cared about, all I thought about. It was my music that I listened to. Craig Lucas once said if he could have dated Company Follies and all of my music, he would have. That's how those shows were in my head, in a very profound and obsessive way. Obsessive.

[7:45] Bobby Steggert: Were you reaching out to Hal and Sondheim blindly?

[7:48] Lonny Price: The Sondheim thing happened because I wrote a letter to Mary Rogers, who's famous now from the book Shy. Infamous now from the book Shy, maybe. There was an ad for the first tribute to Sondheim in 1973. It was an ad in the New York Times. It was signed by friends of Stephen Sondheim. They paid for the ad, and I knew that Mary was a friend of his because I knew her daughter very well. So I wrote to Mary and saying, I only have $25, but I love his music more than anything. I cut school the day the Night Music Box Off was open, and I just did this huge thing about how much I loved his music, and could she help me get a ticket? And she passed the letter on to Steve, and he wrote to me. And so that was the beginning of our pen pal thing when I was 14.

[8:41] Bobby Steggert: At that point, what was the quality you led with? Did you lead with this attitude, like I belong with you, or was it an attitude of please teach me?

[8:51] Lonny Price: Fandom. I was so in awe and so knocked out by his material and music and lyrics since I was 11 and saw Companies. It was just everything to me. So he wrote back very sweet, thank you for liking my work so much, that kind of thing. He made a mistake by putting his return address on the envelope, and I just started writing him. And he started writing back. And then I met him for tea or something, and he had me walked into alumni music. Anyway, he was very kind to me and very mentor-y. Yeah, I don't really know, Bobby, what I wanted. It's an interesting question from it. There wasn't like, I want him to write a part for me. I never even thought of any of that. I think I just wanted to be in the tent.

I just wanted to be part of the kind of theater that I admired so much and wanted to be around. And then I wrote to Hal Prince and I said, can I just hang around? And he was lovely to me. And he said, come after school and all that. And Hal really is the one that said, come on in. You're one of us. And that was huge. My God, it was just everything to me that he would see in me something that he thought was worthy, or reminded him of him, maybe, his obsession with the theater. These men were great to me. And I'll always be grateful. And I never took it for granted. And they were my heroes. So I got to be around my heroes.

[10:25] Bobby Steggert: What did you learn about ambition from your heroes?

[10:25] Lonny Price: I learned about ambition. They were so successful. When I met them, I met Steve and Hal right after Night Music and Pacific Overshoes. But they were monster men in the theater by the time I met them. And I think ambition was satisfied. So they would just allow it to be artists. The amazing thing about Hal is he produced anything he wanted to do. I'm always trying to get a producer to do something or to help. And he just did it himself because he was a successful producer before he was a director. So he never had a struggle to get anything on or to do anything. And he just would call Steve and say, I have an idea. And Steve would say, oh, I'll do that. And that was that. Then a year later was a great show.

But they were still rarefied, those two. So I don't know what I learned about ambition. But I was always embarrassed about ambition, I have to say. I don't think it looks very good. It looks okay on someone really young, because it can be charming, but it does not wear well.

[11:28] Bobby Steggert: How did it wear poorly on you in your memory? When did you lead with it that you regret?

[11:34] Lonny Price: I always led with it. I think if you would have met me, you would have at that point. I was just determined. And unifocused is really the thing is that there was nothing else. My focus was on my work. I think that's how it manifested is a very limited life that was only about getting the next job.

[11:58] Bobby Steggert: I think of you as so heart-led. And I'm imagining, as you described this, that version of you wasn't as heart-led.

[12:02] Lonny Price: Yeah, that's fair. I think that's fair.

[12:10] Lonny Price: To be human. And it also happened to be lucky and had a spectacular shrink. And a great friend, Linny Green, who would say, going through the park and getting to the location, actually, the park is part of it. You're not seeing anything. You're not seeing the flowers. You're not seeing the trees. You're just going through the park. And so I was really lucky, and she's still one of my best friends in the world, to be able to have a friend who was going, slow down here. You're missing it. And have a shrink who was very much, you're missing it.

[12:41] Bobby Steggert: I think it would be a disservice to not also name that you were a young adult in the 80s during the AIDS crisis. I'm sure there would have been fear to be more of a fully embodied person in that time period.

[12:58] Lonny Price: Wow. Yes. And I was with an older man during those years who was like my best friend and father and teacher and mentor and very complicated relationship. And so I was not really, I was not sleeping around. So I was safe in that way. I still wonder, though, if that entire environment made it easy to just focus on career, to just warehouse yourself in career.

[13:29] Bobby Steggert: I think that's fair. I think that's fair. But I also think that this man, David, was also a way to escape from that. And as much as I sometimes look back that relationship in a way that makes me question, was 12 years older than I was, and it was going, what was he doing with that? I was 17, underage, maybe. But I also think that probably saved my life because I was not active except with him. Were those two experiences compartmentalized, this private life with David and then the career?

[14:00] Lonny Price: No, David was part of it. He was in theater, and he was part of the Prince Sondheim world. And he taught me so many things. He introduced me to all kinds of composers and lyricists and shows. He was a brilliant theater historian and writer and very damaged. And also, I think he gave me courage because he believed in me. And so I was standing on the shoulders of a professional who believed in me, who said, yeah, you can do this. You can do this. And that was very lucky for me. And he reveled in my success and was celebratory of it and me. And so I had this rock that I was able to balance on.

[14:44] Bobby Steggert: He gave you what your mom couldn't give you.

[14:50] Lonny Price: Oh, yeah. Also, my grandmother really brought me up. My mom went back to work when I was two weeks old. And my grandmother raised Jodi and I. And she was unconditional love. And she died the year before I met David. It was very interesting that I got yet another, though David was not unconditional. It was a very full expression of love. And that was very lucky to have.

[15:19] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back. What was expected of you by your parents? Was anything expected? Was greatness expected?

[15:27] Lonny Price: My mom loved the theater, but she loved a different kind of theater than I did. I really loved the Sondheim stuff. And she was more of a Jerry Herman kind of a fan. She loved Mayhem and she loved Hello, Dolly! And she liked all that kind of thing. He had wanted to be an actress when she was young, and it was the Depression. And she used to audition for my grandmother like every night by singing. And my grandmother would say, no, Edie, no money for lessons. It was just sad. So she loved the theater. My father was a trumpet player in the Catskill Mountains where they met. And she loved, I think, that he was in show business, whatever part of it he was in, playing in bands and stuff. She was also a career woman who I don't think had very much interest in her children.

But she did have interest when I would sing or when I would be in plays. So it was very clear to me that I would get her attention if I was performing, essentially. She didn't show up for the science fair at school. She showed up for the musical. I gravitated toward that. They took us to see shows as part of our birthday present, my sister and I, Jodi. And that was, you'd got the Saturday matinee of whatever musical was popular at the time. And we saw a lot. I went to the theater when I was four years old. I saw Oliver on my fourth birthday. And we had the albums at home. And it was indoctrination to a certain degree and getting her attention. So yes, I think there was a family connection to wanting her to see me.

[16:58] Bobby Steggert: So your first big opportunities came pretty soon. And from a psychological perspective, I think what I'm most interested in, and I don't think I've ever asked you this, is beyond the story of how it happened. Did you pursue aggressively these first roles that changed your life?

[17:15] Lonny Price: My memory of being a young actor was that there was a part of me that felt so deserving, and then other parts of me that felt so much like an imposter. And I'm just wondering if you felt like you were ready for those opportunities.

[17:27] Lonny Price: I don't know if I'm dissimilar to other people. After performing arts, I got into Juilliard and had a kind of nervous breakdown there and left in a year. And I started auditioning, go to the open calls. And I was a member of Equity because I had done a touring production of The Rothschilds when I was 14. In the summer, my only professional job, which Mary Rogers got me, by the way. And so I could go to EPAs. And I was living at home on 8th Street. So I didn't have the pressure of making a living. I was living at home. I guess I just was auditioning. And I was lucky and got this play called Class Enemy. And it was a showcase and moved and ran about a year. And I had a great part in it, got an award for it, and it just started tumbling pretty quickly.

That said, it didn't feel like that. It never felt, oh, look at me, or it was just like, why aren't I doing better? I never was feeling like I was doing well. I was always thinking I was behind other people. And why couldn't I get that role? Or, yeah, never felt looking back on it now. I think, wow, I was really lucky.

[18:38] Bobby Steggert: Did Master Herald happen before Merrily?

[18:44] Lonny Price: No. Master Herald happened after Merrily. So with Merrily, of course, it didn't run for long. But how can you say that about me? You didn't experience that as an enormous success in the time?

[18:51] Lonny Price: Personally, it was, I guess, everything I'd ever dreamed about in terms of just being in a show by Steve and directed by Hal and originating a role and songs being written on me. And it was all of that crazy fantasy. But closed in two weeks. The heartbreak of that, for me, was just I wanted to do it more. I just loved doing it. That was just so much fun and so challenging. And so did I feel, I think this is part of why I gave up acting, is that you have a success like that in some ways. And the next day, you're sitting on a bunch of folding chairs with three stapled pieces of paper with people who haven't had that success. And you're no more likely to get the part than they will. Nothing seemed to mean anything. I'm sure it probably did to the people I was auditioning for. But the act of it always felt like I was begging for my next shot. Here's my song and dance and trying to get the next one.

[19:57] Bobby Steggert: So you understood the sort of madness of a nonlinear path very early on.

[20:05] Lonny Price: I did and it was painful. You're going from stopping the new Stephen Sondheim show to auditioning with everybody else in the pool and feeling no more special for having done that. And so it also plays with your head. How is that not meaning anything the next day? But looking back on it, it did mean something, but it didn't feel like it because the actions, the activities of being an actor were the same. It was just, you're back on the pile of resumes and pictures and trying to match the fantasies of the director and writer and not knowing what they are. I've talked about this a lot. I think that's the hardest part about being an actor is that you're matching fantasies.

[20:42] Bobby Steggert: You remind me of my brother. I love my brother. I'll give you the part. I don't even know I'm doing it. You remind me of my brother. I am hating my brother today. I don't think Bobby's right for it. It's just that is going on in everybody's mind who is watching an audition and they don't even know it. So it's just talk about lack of control. You have no idea what they're taking in by whatever filter and lens through which they are looking at you, which is utterly personal and completely subjective.

[21:17] Lonny Price: Okay, but can we turn that on its head? When you met me, did you see yourself in me in any way? Is that part of why you responded to me so personally?

[21:27] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, I think so. You were such a good actor, so young. And I'm not saying that I saw me, but I saw your integrity. I saw how serious-minded you were. I saw that you weren't trying to be a star. You were an actor who wanted to do good work. And you were undeniably terrific. You were just a really, for a young actor, very special. Someone just out of school. It's also exciting to see talent. That is always a turn on. And I don't mean that purely. I just mean, that's why we're here is to recognize that and to celebrate that. Yeah, I think I probably saw myself in you. I wouldn't be surprised. And also, you were auditioning for the role that I had when I was your age. So that also was a lot of the connection to in some ways, you just said, I wasn't trying to be a star when you were in that position as a young person. Were you trying to be a star in terms of the ambition?

[22:23] Lonny Price: Yes. What does that mean to you?

[22:28] Bobby Steggert: It meant I would be able to work on good stuff. I don't think it was about my picture in the paper. I think it really was just, I could have opportunity to work with the best people on the best material and with the best directors. And I think that is really what it was about for me. But I have to say, there must have been certainly a part of pleasing my mother and another part of fame in some way. I guess it's a little hard to unpack it because I think it overlaps, Bobby. I think it's not one or the other. It's all of it together.

[23:01] Lonny Price: Do you feel comfortable telling the story about the newspapers?

[23:07] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Reviews always scared me. Critics were in the house. I don't think I was at my best in general because my parents read them and were very influenced by reviews.

[23:21] Lonny Price: Yeah. We opened Master Harold and I had nine days of rehearsal for that show. First rehearsal, I think, to opening night was like nine days. We had two previews. I don't know if you know that, but I replaced somebody. I replaced Yoko Iwanek, a wonderful actor who took a move. He did it at Yale and he didn't do it on Broadway.

[23:37] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, he did it at Yale, yeah.

[23:41] Lonny Price: And I think he thought they'd wait for him when they moved it and they didn't. And I was the second choice, apparently, what I found out later. And I went in again and I got it right after Merrily, right after Merrily. It's like a tour de force role. He's on stage the entire time.

[23:55] Lonny Price: Yeah. And he never shuts up, as you well know. So I couldn't do it today, but in year 22 or whatever I was, it was just like, okay. And I just myself to get up in the role. But anyway, the opening night of Master Harold, and this is interesting, I think, but Frank Rich, who was reviewing Master Harold, had reviewed Merrily and killed it dead. Just really gave it a really crummy review.

[24:20] Lonny Price: And I knew he was in the house. And I, it was very hard for me to be vulnerable because I think I felt like he had destroyed something that I loved so much. And I was not very good. I don't think what I would say is I was self-conscious. That's what I would say. I was watching me. I wasn't as into the role as I have been or was later. And anyway, I did not get a very good review from him though the play I was smashing review. And my mother the next day said good review in the post too bad it wasn't in the times. There was always a sense of never enough. I think that was definitely embedded in me by my mom, which was like, yeah, yeah, almost. I think I've told you this story that I spoke to her one day in my first apartment and I was in Master Herald, I had just gotten the Muppet movie.

And I had a national co-commercial running. And I called her or she called me and she what's going and I said, place going well, yeah. And I just booked the Muppet movie. I'm really excited. I love it. Yeah. And I said, and the co-commercials now being cut down from a 90 to a 60 to a 50. It was just one of the Yeah, and something stopped me and that's it, mom. It's a Broadway show, a movie and a national co-commercial. It's five o'clock, the offices are closed, there will be no more today. That is all there will be today. And not that she heard it, but it was like throwing fish at a seal. The Yeah, always had this dot dot dot what else? Uh huh. Keep going. Yep. Yep. It was just like shot of heroin and just keep injecting. She needed that.

[25:55] Bobby Steggert: So you internalize that?

[25:57] Lonny Price: Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it was never enough. It was never good enough. And it was never enough.

[26:02] Bobby Steggert: So here's the question. One of the things I really resented after I got pretty successful as an actor was when my people all of a sudden decided that Broadway wasn't enough.

[26:12] Lonny Price: Oh,

[26:13] Bobby Steggert: they were telling me and now I needed to be a series regular on a TV show. Now I need to be a movie star. And so I felt like the people who are supposed to support me were all of a sudden disappointed in my career on Broadway.

[26:23] Lonny Price: Felt like that.

[26:24] Bobby Steggert: And maybe I internalized some of that and assumed worse than they thought but comments would sting. And I wonder if that was ever the case for you. Here I am on Broadway doing commercials. I'm about to do this Muppet movie. But will I be a movie star? No, I just cared about this. Honestly, I did have no interest in television. I had no interest in the movies. I really I just wanted to be on stage Bobby, honestly, there was one time I got they're about to test for a pilot. And in those days, I did negotiate a seven year contract. Because if you're the hot thing on the TV show, you can't turn around and go I want a million dollars an episode, they lock you in. And very lucratively. And I freaked out the night before I had to sign it.

And I just said, I can't do this. I don't want this. I don't want to live in LA. I don't want to do five jokes on a sitcom a week. I know exactly what they're going to do with me. No, they'll market a certain aspect of my personality that is sellable or attractive in a way they can make a commodity of. And I backed out. And I lost my agent from it. And it was okay. Because in those years, people used to do television so they could do Broadway. I was doing Broadway already. So I thought, why am I going to do something I don't want to do? So that I can do something that I'm already doing?

[27:42] Bobby Steggert: Then what was your mom's fantasy?

[27:48] Lonny Price: I think she just was insatiable because it was about her. It was what she would have achieved had she done it. Her fantasy of what she might have been, which was higher than whatever I was doing, or she thought she was encouraging me to do more or better, or I don't know, it just felt like she had an insatiable desire for me to have more and more success. The truth is, I think she wasn't seen by her mother. And the way she was going to be seen in the world is through her son. And so I had to make up for her lack of visibility with her mother by being seen in a big way.

[28:26] Bobby Steggert: Tale as old as time.

[28:27] Lonny Price: Yeah, it's all a cliché, isn't it? It's the last thing a gypsy, you know, I guess I just wanted to be noticed. That's it, period. So dull.

[28:35] Bobby Steggert: It's so human.

[28:37] Lonny Price: Yeah, I guess.

[28:38] Bobby Steggert: Will you share the general shape of the decision to direct and how ambition guided you towards that and how your ambition remained the same or how it changed as you change your career path?

[28:51] Lonny Price: I had no interest in directing at all, ever. I was doing a little play at a place called the American Jewish Theater on 28th Street, which is now the Citizens Brigade or something. It's under a supermarket.

[29:03] Bobby Steggert: Oh, Upright Citizens Brigade.

[29:04] Lonny Price: Yeah, that was the original roundabout space. That was the first roundabout space. Yeah, I wasn't there for that. I was there for the American Jewish Theater, took it over from them. And the artistic director asked for some suggestions for a director for a musical. They were doing In That Tiny, as you well know, that it's like 10 by 10, that stage, I don't know, with the lights. You couldn't be too tall because you'd hit the lights. Anyway, he asked for suggestions and I gave him some and he said, what about you? And I honest to God, Bobby, never thought about directing. I had no interest. I didn't know what it was. I paid attention to who was ever directing. I had really good directors. Alan Arkin was a spectacular director.

Fulgard was a great director. So I'd worked with really good directors, but I was working on my role. I wasn't thinking about it. And I just thought I had a contract to do a role. I was going to do Jimmy Durante in this musical in eight months or something. And I thought I'll certainly learn something. And if I'm bad at it, I'll just be an actor who wasn't any good at being a director. And I don't care about directing, I just care about acting. But I remember feeling very excited when I got closer that I thought, oh, this is really, this fits. I liked being in charge. I liked having more of a vision of the whole piece. I realized I had one. I didn't know I would. And being an actor, so I'm five, six and a half.

I was balding. I wear glasses. I could see the writing on the wall of the kind of roles that I was going to be offered. When I was younger, I played South African boy. I played a Polish kid. I played all kinds of ethnicities. And the older I got, the more narrow that was getting and the less interesting the parts were. And also, I really felt, and I don't know if you and I talked about this, looking in the mirror so much was not good for me. And I thought, I don't know that I'll ever become a man if I keep looking in the mirror and having my fate be determined by being too short or too tall or too bald or too Jewish or too respectable. That that wasn't a place of not that I want to be powerful, but of self-determination that I'd always be begging for a job, which, though it isn't auditions, felt to me like I was a beggar.

And I did not like that feeling. I wasn't good at auditioning. So once I got to be a director, I felt respected in a different way. And I also liked treating the actors the way I had always wanted to be treated and was all the time. And to help someone shape a performance and to watch it grow and to be part of that process, but not being it, but helping somebody was really, it felt great.

[31:47] Bobby Steggert: You taught me very early on in my path that you could be both deeply focused on making the play great and also committed to developing a culture in the company that was positive and that was supportive and that was healthy. You taught me that.

[32:08] Lonny Price: I'm glad that you got that for me. It's very important to me in all my shows that it is a healthy and positive atmosphere and that people feel safe to be able to try things and not be judged and that we're in it together, that we're all holding hands, jumping off the cliff together. And yeah, kindness is very important to me. And honestly, I think it's a privilege to work in the theater and I still do after 40 whatever years of it. And there's a line behind me going around the block of people who wish they were in the room, but we get to be. And so we need to treat each other well and with respect and kindness.

[32:53] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back. Will you now talk about your really unique experience in the kind of therapy you did? I find it so fascinating.

[33:00] Lonny Price: Yeah, I was with a, I guess a Freudian therapist for 30 something years. I don't know if you know that she was the president of the Society for Years. He studied with Foucault and Roland Barthes in Paris. He is Catalonian. Just a fascinating, amazing human being. And he was more of a philosopher in a way. He turned me on to Krishnamurti and he turned me on to Marcus Aurelius. He would always say he was a conduit. He wasn't anything. He was just a channel to which he could show you the great minds that have ever lived and their philosophies of how to live a good life, what was important. And that was a huge revelation to me because I was so focused on the career that they say, Oh, that's really not the thing that is the focus of your life or shouldn't be, or would be better if it wasn't, or would be more inclusive if you added other things to your plate.

So he was an extraordinary influence on me just in terms of doing service. He introduced me that which I do to this day and leaving a place better than you find it. Just very parental. This is how you are a good human being. This is what this looks like. And I didn't think of any of that. I was not that person before him. And when I hear anecdotes about him, it always shocks me as to how blunt and sometimes critical he could be.

[34:33] Bobby Steggert: Oh, you bet. Certainly not how I would talk to a client, but he would just cut right to the fucking point.

[34:38] Lonny Price: Yeah, I always used to say it was like you were a dog repeat on the rug and he put your nose into it and he goes, smell that you want to do that again? You think that's good? You think that's good for the rug? Now, how did that not backfire and then shame you?

[34:52] Lonny Price: Maybe it did. I don't know. I don't know how much shame has played into my particular psyche or story. That said, though, I didn't come out till I was 30. Obviously, that was something that was not comfortable for me. Yeah, but no, I didn't take it as shame. I didn't take it as he was shaming me. I took it as he was, I don't know, very tough love. And also, I knew that he was right when he was saying was. And when I knew it wasn't right, I did not follow it. There were certain things that I did not think he was right about that were very core to me that I just said, no, that's not. So I was a semi good student, but I wasn't a perfect student at all. But I did get a lot from it. And yeah, it was a huge relationship in my life.

It was really a good father. And I had a very nice father, a very nice, lovely man, but not a real father in terms of teaching you how to be in the world. Or he did teach you how to be in the world. But I found a teacher that had a much more holistic, if that's the word, a much more broad sense of how to live a good life and how to be a good human being in the world.

[36:02] Bobby Steggert: That's huge. And the conversations we've had over the years about that experience for you really did frame my path forward as a therapist, because I always really early. Yeah, that there's a moral dimension to therapy. It's not just about supporting the client, it's about helping them to understand that integrity is connected to their happiness. And that's beautiful, Bobby. Yeah, it was that. Yeah. And so he influenced me through you, which

[36:30] Lonny Price: Amazing. I love that. And I think he would love that. Yeah, yeah, the ripples of a good teacher, how many people can be affected by that. And I think, by the way, how I direct and how I am in the room, and modeling what I learned from him, I think probably has an effect on people and how they want to treat and be treated. And he gave me a sense of a much larger world or a larger ethos that needed to be paid attention to. And that's why I say when you wouldn't have met me when I was 22, that did not prevail. You were steeped in the monoculture of the theater when you were young.

[37:08] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. So here's a question. Let's say you went to him, I'm sure it was a long and abstract process as you change through your work with him. But if you had come to him with something very ego-driven, that was based on ambition, my show didn't run a year, I didn't make a million dollars, what would he have said about it?

[37:24] Lonny Price: Boo hoo. What? I mean, he would have been why are you focused on that? He would not have, not that he wouldn't have entertained it, but he would have redirected it into something that was less ego-driven. And he didn't have a lot of tolerance for feeling sorry for yourself. That said, when my mom died, he was very kind to me. He was very warm and fuzzy as he got.

[37:56] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, that's such an interesting question. What would he have said if I said I was really upset is something that would occur to me. Paul Newman's daughter, I once saw her on television. And she said that whenever she was depressed, her parents had gone to help somebody. And that was the solution for depression. I think this man's taught me that to redirect it into something useful. But I'm confounded by the question, Bobby, I don't know what he and I must have been like that, certainly many times. But I don't know how much tolerance he would have had. He didn't think that was all very important. He once encouraged me to take a job that I didn't want to take. Because someone had produced a couple of my shows, a woman who was very nice to me, very kind.

And she had a show that the director died. And I thought it wasn't good. She asked me to do it. And he said, You owe that to her. What is friendship to you? And I said, This is bad. It's not going to get it's not gonna be good. I'm gonna get bad reviews. You know what I mean? The show is not going to be successful. And he was like, I'm not sure that's as important as repaying her kindness to you. And I did it. And it wasn't successful. And it probably didn't help my career at all, probably put a little nail in a coffin there. Not sure to this day, I should have done it. But that would have been his point of view. Not you won't get a Tony Award, it would be who are you in the world? As a human being?

Do you not recognize that there's reciprocity and the people are kind to you, you're kind to them, she was in a jam. And she really wanted me to help her. Now met one of my best friends, whom I adore, and wouldn't have. So it's not like I look back regretting it. But in some ways, it was helpful for my humanity. And it was not helpful for my career.

[39:51] Bobby Steggert: What about you changed the most in terms of goals and ambition? If you could paint the broadest picture of what has changed, even if you still struggle at times with comparison has changed the most, I think lately, in some ways, realizing that I had the life I had always hoped I'd and being grateful for that I actually did get to do what I wanted to do, not all of it and not at the level and it wasn't all successful. And most of it was totally successful, but that I got to, I got to wake up every day and do what I love to do, and be paid for it enough to survive. And not to be wealthy, but to have a very fine life. At a certain age, you're not striving to become you've become something I'm not at the beginning, I could have two more hits, three more hits, three more flops, it's not going to move the needle as to what people think of me or what how I'd spent the bulk of my life. The die is cast at a certain age. It's an okay die. It's a die that I don't feel regretful about and am proud of.

[40:58] Bobby Steggert: You told a beautiful story about the opening in England. When the curtain went down at the end of the show, your first thought was I need to walk the dog. And what a beautiful thing to prioritize that that's what you thought of even though this big show had just opened.

[41:14] Lonny Price: Yeah, I had a very unsuccessful production of Men of La Mancha in London. And anyway, the curtain came down and I walked the dog and he had a good poop and I thought good night. This is a good night. He did. I thought, yay, Charlie. Yeah, okay. All right. All right. That was the highlight. Because I care about him, obviously. And okay, he's, he's good. He's he did. All right. I don't think that would have occurred to me at 25 to walk the dog. And luckily, I didn't have one because I don't know how attentive I would have been able to be.

[41:46] Bobby Steggert: And in terms of relationships to your partner to friends like me, it seems to me that you've always entered them as extremely important. But how has that evolved in the big picture?

[41:57] Lonny Price: I think I always have highly valued my friends and you being in the inner circle of that body of people who I really love and care about and root for. And so I don't know that it's changed that much, except that maybe I try to make more time. I remember at my 40th birthday, Jim Walton, who's one of my closest friends and got up and said, Lonny's always Lonny's busy, and Lonny's very busy. And I used to get busy and I thought, wow, that's my friend see me as is busy. And I don't think I want to die with people saying he was very busy. I don't know how much I've changed that. But it occurs to me that friendship is almost everything, that relationships are the Harvard Medical Studies and all of that.

They say that what they learn is who can you call it to in the morning, who has people they can call it to in the morning. And those are the people, no matter how much money or success they have, are ultimately the most satisfied with their lives and the happiest. And the people who are more isolated, no matter how much money they have or success, are least happy. And I know that's true. So I try to remember that. But I can get caught up still in my ambition or in my wanting things to happen.

[43:17] Lonny Price: The other thing, though, is that we live in New York City, both of us. And I pass people in such terrible shape, going to the subway in the morning. People are homeless. They have their children with them, their dogs. And it's just heartbreaking. In a way, why I like living in New York, though not all the time, is the reminder to be grateful. And it's, boo, Lonny didn't get a theater for his show. Oh, Lonny didn't. Oh, poor Lonny. And I'm going, and now what is my problem? As I pass these people. And now what is Lonny really worried about today? And why is he upset or depressed or disappointed? And there's always the reminder of people here who are facing real struggles, real big ticket item stuff of staying warm and eating and caring for their families. And shut up about your petty crap. You're fine. It's very privileged. And I think that's something that the city teaches me every day.

[44:19] Lonny Price: And just in terms of VR, because we keep talking about that, I don't know how much I paid attention to that when I was young. And I pay much more attention to that now. I think that's probably the main thing you've helped me evolve with, too. In the beginning, we were dear friends, and you were hiring me quite a lot to do different projects that were life-altering projects for me. But even early on, we started talking more and more about what it was to be of service to be really truly connected to have purpose beyond oneself. And those conversations all added up to me doing what I do today. So it's really partly you that got me here and that also convinced me I didn't need a Broadway career in order to be happy, satisfied person. That's something that's so of the past for me.

[45:07] Bobby Steggert: I'm so happy that it's of the past and that I was part of that journey for you. And that's some of my best work right there, if that was useful. It's not something that I learned and done with. It's something that every day I need to learn. It's very easy to get into the who's got what kind of world in the city if you're in the theater and the buses pass by with shows that you didn't get. There's so many triggers here. I think it's you put on your boxing gloves every day, you go out and you try and be better and not let that stuff compromise you in some way. And your experience of your day and your experience of your friends and your husband, your dog. I think those triggers are always there from when I was younger.

[46:00] Lonny Price: I think all we can hope for is that the duration of the suffering from them is shorter. Is that I have more control over my reaction to things and how long I'm going to be upset. I don't think triggers like things that are so ingrained in you from childhood, I'm not sure they ever heal completely. And as you do parts work, and I'm learning about that is incorporating those parts of you that are triggered by that and living in harmony with them and in compassion for them, but not letting them dominate your life is what you learn, hopefully.

[46:28] Lonny Price: And there's the principle I love and in terms of parts is that you can give it a new and evolved job. If my ambition, my ambition has become more about building a business, but also helping others. So how would you say that your ambition looks forward from this point?

[46:46] Bobby Steggert: I think always giving people an experience that is nice or kind and gentle and loving, no matter what the outcome of the success of the project is, but that we treat each other with dignity and integrity and care. I think that's first and foremost, because in the end, it won't matter if there are more hits or flops coming. None of that will actually matter that much. You can take care of people. I think we're here to take care of each other, obviously, and that the more we can do that, the better. So enjoying the creativity for its own sake, and not for what you're going to get for it. It's not for the trophies. It's for the remembering and inspiring people to know it's the doing of it that you're here for, and the rest of it is none of your business. You can't control it. It's other people's opinions, and you just have to just remember the joy of why you're doing what you're doing.

[47:43] Bobby Steggert: I want to close with this one memory, and of course, I know you remember it too, but I think about One Time in the Shade, and what a just spectacular experience that was for me, professionally and personally and all this stuff. But really, if I think about that time, I remember a preview, after which we got notes, when you and I stood at the foot of the stage and became real friends. That's my best memory of that time.

[48:10] Lonny Price: I remember that very well. That's one of the great memories, just being a new friend that was going to last forever, and knowing it, and how odd it was to look at you and go, I'm going to know him for a long time.