Kenneth William Lonergan, who was Provincetown’s town crier from 2007 to 2020, greeting visitors as they disembarked from ferries with his signature “All is well in Provincetown because you are here,” died on Nov. 17, 2024 at Care Dimensions Hospice House in Lincoln. The cause was metastatic small-cell lung cancer. He was 78.
The youngest of six children of John Edward Lonergan and Ita Marie (Delaney) Lonergan, Kenneth was born on June 23, 1946 in Somerville. He graduated from Matignon High School in Cambridge in 1964 and earned a B.A. in special education at Boston College in 1968. He later added a master’s degree.
Kenneth developed his acting and singing talents in college theatrical productions, and in the summer he performed at a Catskill Mountains resort, building a base of experience for his subsequent theater career. According to his former wife, Ann Whiteley, he wrote, produced, directed, or performed in more than 300 plays and musicals.
Kenneth worked for more than 30 years at Somerville High School as a special education teacher and administrator. He also directed the school’s musical theater productions, mentoring and inspiring generations of students. He retired in 2004.
On a Somerville High School social media page, more than 60 former students posted memories and reflections on the effect Kenneth had on their lives. One student wrote: “Mr. Lonergan was the singing voice of the hallways, the support a lot of us students needed and a true legend of Somerville High School.”
Another former student observed: “Mr. Lonergan ran in-house suspension…. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time being suspended, but one of the best things to come out of it was meeting Mr. Lonergan. He was just a cool, caring dude who never judged any of us for being young. He set the example that it’s OK to be yourself.”
In 1974, Kenneth founded the Sunsetters, a group of local high school students that performed songs from musicals and dance numbers in the streets of Somerville neighborhoods during the summer until the mid-1980s. “For many of us who grew up in Somerville,” Mayor Joseph Curtatone told the Somerville Times in 2005, “the Sunsetters were real hometown heroes. It was great for the neighborhoods and great for the kids who participated.”
During a two-year sabbatical from teaching, Kenneth worked as a stage doorman for the Shubert Company in New York City, reveling in theater life and befriending Broadway staff and actors, including Patti Lupone, with whom he bonded over smoke breaks.
In the late 1980s and into the 1990s Kenneth lived in Marblehead, where he produced and directed shows at the Little Theatre and performed each July 4th as “Sandy Clause” and at Christmas as an elf arriving at the dock by lobster boat with Santa Claus.
When he retired from teaching, Kenneth began spending summers in Provincetown, where in 2007 he revived the tradition of the town crier, which had been suspended in 1987. Documentary filmmaker Mike Syers’s 2018 “Because You’re Here,” which won Best New England Short Film at the Provincetown Film Festival that year, featured Kenneth.
“He had such a story, not just as town crier,” Syers said. In the film, Kenneth says, “I start up every morning by going to a recovery meeting and that helps center me for the day. There’s a spiritual nature to recovery.” He also says it was not until he was 50 that he came out as gay. It was his wife, Ann, who urged him to spend time in Provincetown.
“He was so much about acceptance and being yourself,” Syers said. And he was a memorable town crier. “When you’re the only Pilgrim walking around with a bell, you can’t ignore people,” he told the Provincetown Banner. “It’s constant talking, but as my mother would say, ‘Kenneth, you could talk a dog off a meat wagon.’ ”
He also could sing, performing “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Yankee Doodle,” among other show tunes, about which John Waters was quoted telling him: “I’ve known many criers, and you’re the first to do Broadway.”
As he had done in Somerville and Marblehead, Kenneth got involved in Provincetown local theater, performing as Angel 2nd Class in the Provincetown Theater’s 2019 production of It’s a Wonderful Life and as Mortimer in its 2023 production of The Fantasticks, even though his cancer made the latter performance a serious challenge.
Kenneth burst into song spontaneously at any gathering, and his powerful tenor filled many churches and cathedrals at the weddings and funerals of friends and family. On Labor Day 2024, he made his last visit to Provincetown, where some 25 friends greeted him with a “Welcome Home” sign, hugs, and song.
In a 2020 interview, Kenneth said, “The town has been wonderful to me; they loved me with their eyes, their smiles, their humor.”
Kenneth is survived by his sister Ita Marie Quinn, niece Laura, and nephew Joseph of Woburn; sister Suzanne Perry, husband Richard, niece and goddaughter Denise, and nephew Steven of Middleton; sister Ellen, and niece and goddaughter Mary Ellen of Somerville; sister-in-law Barbara, nephews Ted and Jeffery, and niece and goddaughter Kerry; sister-in-law Marion and nephew John; and his former spouse and soulmate, Ann Whiteley.
He was predeceased by his brothers, Jackie and Edward Lonergan, and nephews Allen and Mark Perry.
Donations in Kenneth’s memory can be made to the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, P.O. Box 817, Provincetown 02657. A celebration of his life will be held at the Meeting House next June.
