About the Artist

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About the Artist

Two-time AUDELCO Award winner for “Best Director of a Musical,” Lee Summers is an American theatre, television, and film actor, singer, librettist, composer, director, educator and theatre producer, best known for Off Broadway’s From My Hometown.

Summers’ “Ella, First Lady of Song,” conceived by Maurice Hines, and for which Summers is director and librettist won the 2022 AUDELCO Award for “Best Musical” along with four other 2022 category awards.

In 2022 Summers also directed “Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” for the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival. In June 2022, Summers premiered his newest musical, “Bayard the Musical,” about gay civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin – followed by serving as a guest director at Berklee College. Summers has directed works for numerous New York and regional theatres and universities, nationwide. He has also directed numerous short films and virtual productions.

Summers made his Broadway debut in the original Dreamgirls–alongside Sheryl Lee Ralph and Loretta Devine, and for which he reprised his role in the Dreamgirls 20th Anniversary Concert, alongside Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, Heather Headley, and other Broadway notables.

Left to Right: Loretta Devine, Terry Burrell, Lee Summers, Deborah Burrell Circa 1985, Closing day of Original Broadway Production of Dreamgirls
Left to Right: Loretta Devine, Terry Burrell, Lee Summers, Deborah Burrell Circa 1985, Closing day of Original Broadway Production of Dreamgirls

He got his start as an actor at HBCU, Tennessee State University while simultaneously singing and dancing at Opryland, U.S.A. While a senior at TSU, Summers met Broadway’s “The Bobby Hill” who had been a star of Micki Grant’s “Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope.” Hill had enrolled to complete his long overdue degree. After performing on campus in several productions together, Hill told Summers he had the talent to make it in New York, prompting Summers to make the move to the Big Apple.

Since then, Summers has performed On and Off-Broadway, in major American repertory theatres, and in numerous roles for daytime and primetime TV, including, “Blue Bloods,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “New York Undercover,” “Law and Order” and in films such as “Malcolm X” directed by Spike Lee.

As a writer, lyricist, and composer, Summers’ works have been produced in New York and by numerous regional theatres, including “I Remember Harlem” – a tap dance tale – libretto, music, and lyrics by Summers and Kevin Ramsey. Notably, he served as conceiver/co-writer/co-composer and lead producer for Off Broadway’s From My Hometown, which has been produced at over twelve regional theatres including the Madison Theatre at Molloy. From My Hometown will soon be published by Broadway Licensing.

Notably, he served as conceiver/co-writer/co-composer and lead producer for Off Broadway’s From My Hometown, which has been produced at over twelve regional theatres including the Madison Theatre at Molloy. From My Hometown will soon be published by Broadway Licensing.

Presently, Summers serves as adjunct faculty at NYU’s Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions. After Tennessee State, Summers earned his BA from SUNY Empire State College and his MFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

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Member: AEA, SAG/AFTRA, SDC, DG.