Lee Summers is an award-winning actor, director, writer, and educator whose career spans Broadway, television, film, and higher education. He made his Broadway debut in the Tony and Grammy Award-winning original production of Dreamgirls, later returning for the Actors Fund’s Dreamgirls 20th Anniversary Concert alongside Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, and Heather Headley (available on all platforms).
Summers began acting training and performing lead and supporting roles in both classical and contemporary plays while still an undergraduate at Tennessee State University—whose theatre department counts Oprah Winfrey among its alumni. His screen credits include Blue Bloods, Boardwalk Empire, Law & Order, and Malcolm X, and his stage work includes Little Ham, On Kentucky Avenue (Best Supporting Actor AUDELCO nomination), and productions with the Negro Ensemble Company and Yale’s Eugene O’Neill Festival.
A two-time AUDELCO Award and Broadway World Award winner for “Best Director of a Musical,” Summers has directed regionally and Off-Broadway and recently completed his fourth year as guest director at BerkleeNYC. As a writer, he conceived, co-created, and produced the Off-Broadway musical From My Hometown—now licensed in the U.S. and Canada through Concord Theatricals—and wrote The System: Stop, Frisk & All That Jazz, which has been included for two consecutive years in the playwriting curriculum at SUNY Empire State College.
At NYU Steinhardt, Summers teaches Acting for Singers at both the graduate and undergraduate levels and has also taught Music Scene Study. In 2020, he wrote and directed the NYU virtual musical tribute Storm, and in 2024 served as acting coach for the NYU opera production of Two Remain. His teaching practice extends internationally, with private students from Shanghai to Seoul, and he continues to train emerging performers through his private coaching studio.
Summers holds a BA from SUNY Empire State College and an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
www.LeeSummersShows.com