Educator 

NYU Bio Link:

NYU Steinhardt | Music Adjunct Faculty

Music and Performing Arts Professions

(2020 – Present)

Lee Summers is an adjunct professor at NYU Steinhardt where he teaches Acting for Singers and Musical Theatre performance. His teaching bridges professional rehearsal practice with actor training rooted in the Meisner technique, emphasizing truthful behavior, active listening, and emotional availability in performance.

Summers’ classes are designed to help performers bring dramatic specificity to musical material. Students work with classical and contemporary musical theatre repertoire while developing the acting tools necessary to sustain truthful storytelling within heightened musical circumstances.

Drawing on decades of professional experience on Broadway, television, and regional theatre, Summers integrates real-world rehearsal discipline with rigorous actor training. His approach encourages performers to move beyond presentation and into fully lived dramatic action.

In addition to his work at NYU, Summers has taught workshops and master classes for performers and institutions across the United States. His teaching philosophy centers on a simple premise:
Great singing actors are not singers who act — they are actors who sing.