John L. Price, Jr., was in customarily high spirits at the opening of a 2002 exhibition of memorabilia from Musicarnival, which he ran in Warrensville Heights from 1954 to 1975. He died Wednesday at the age of 92.Audiences at Musicarnival in Warrensville Heights looked forward to more than the shows themselves. They relished the greeting of the exuberant man in the red jacket.
"Good evening, neighbors, and welcome to Musicarnival!" announced John L. "Johnny" Price Jr. before the main event began.
Price, who died Wednesday at Judson Park in Cleveland at the age of 92 after a long illness, lived his dream running Musicarnival, the summer theater in a blue tent he founded next to Thistledown racetrack for productions of musical theater, operetta and opera.
Beginning in 1954 with Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!," Price presented acclaimed shows for 12 seasons featuring a resident company largely of local professionals.
- John L. Price Jr.
- May 29, 1920-June 20, 2012
- Survivors:
- Funeral:
- Contributions:
- Arrangements:
With a decline in interest in musical theater in the mid-1960s, he continued filling seats at Musicarnival with imported touring productions, variety shows headlined by stars and rock groups.
The theater closed in 1975, after which Price served as executive director of the Northern Ohio Opera Association, sponsor of the annual Cleveland visits of New York's Metropolitan Opera.
"I would call the self-producing years at Musicarnival his heyday, the best part of his professional life," said his daughter, author Diana Price. "The theater was his baby. We all but lived at the theater when it was in season."
Many of those seasons included the first summer-stock productions in the country of such classic musicals as "Oklahoma!," "South Pacific," "The Music Man" and "The Most Happy Fella." Price didn't stint on quality, bringing in actors, directors and staff seasoned in musical theater.
He made Musicarnival unique by hiring Cleveland architect Robert A. Little to design a blue tent supported by a tripod that promoted clear sight lines. The construction enabled Price to achieve unusual technical feats.
"When he started in the theater, he just wanted to do it better than anybody else," said Judith Daykin, who worked at Musicarnival in many capacities for a decade and later became Price's companion.
"The tripod was unlike any other theater in the round. We could do things nobody else could do. We flew scenery, built elevators in the stage of the theater. He just loved it and loved the artists and the music. So it was inspiring."
Price loved theater from an early age, thanks to his mother, who was active on Cleveland's theatrical scene. He began acting at Cain Park, took part in "Cain Park Theatre of the Air" radio programs on WHK and WGAR, and became an expert on the subject of Shakespeare.
Price attended Hawken School, Cleveland Heights High School and Western Reserve University before enlisting in the Navy during World War II. He landed on Utah Beach in the first wave of the Normandy invasion on D-Day.
Back in Cleveland after the war, Price was a key player in musicals at Herman Pirchner's Alpine Village Nightclub at PlayhouseSquare. He worked on the weekly Cleveland television shows "The Troubadour," "Rowena, the Minstrel Girl" and "Golden Wedding," toured in vaudeville and played Mr. Weather-Eye on WEWS Channel 5 during the station's early years.
But Musicarnival was the biggest accomplishment of a career filled with achievement. Price not only ran the theater, chose the shows and hired the artistic personnel, he also performed in a number of productions, including "Guys and Dolls," "My Fair Lady," "Kiss Me, Kate" and "Damn Yankees," in which he sang "You Gotta Have Heart."
One of his major coups in the early years of Musicarnival was engaging an unknown soprano from Brooklyn, N.Y., who was poised for stardom. Price hired Beverly Sills in 1955 to sing Rosalinda in Johann Strauss II's "Die Fledermaus," a role she repeated soon thereafter at the New York City Opera.
Price also served as matchmaker to Sills and Peter Greenough, then associate editor of The Plain Dealer.
"He came to me and said, 'I have to meet that Beverly Sills girl,' " Price told The Plain Dealer in 2007 upon Sills' death. "I introduced them, and the rest is history."
The history of Musicarnival is extremely well-documented, thanks to Price, a pack rat who kept everything virtually associated with the theater. The John L. Price Jr. Musicarnival Archives at the Cleveland Public Library contain 33,500 slides, 12,000 photographs, 32 scrapbooks, props and other materials he collected during 22 seasons in Warrensville Heights and seven in Palm Beach, Fla.
The archives soon will house complete audio recordings of more than 90 musicals and operettas presented at Musicarnival. The performances, in the process of being digitally restored by the Cleveland-based Musical Theater Project, will be available to visitors at the library and Goodspeed Musicals' Scherer Library of Musical Theatre in East Haddam, Conn., starting in January.
"He was very important to a lot of us, especially me," said Daykin, who went from Musicarnival to posts with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and New York City Center, where she started the admired "Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert" series.
"For Cleveland, he was responsible for so many people's careers. So many of us were launched there. He lived a very colorful life."