The Anthology
Lift Every Voice and Slay
Four provocative short plays bring Black queer lives, Black masculinity, family, survival and resilience center stage, moving from laughter and confrontation to remembrance and healing.
IncludesThe Blue Suit · One Shot Deal · Pips · Obama Drama
Written byLee Summers
- Cast
- 7 actors
- Running time
- 75–90 minutes
- Content
- Mature language and themes
From the anthology Lift Every Voice and Slay
The Blue Suit
In a Harlem gym on the Fourth of July, a Black gay man and his father reckon with race, masculinity, sexuality and the wounds passed between generations before discovering what it means to finally set each other free.
Written byLee Summers
- Cast
- 2 actors
- Running time
- 25 minutes
- Content
- Mature themes and language
From the anthology Lift Every Voice and Slay
One Shot Deal
Seeking emergency help with his rent, a young Black gay artist enters the absurd maze of the public-assistance system, where bureaucracy, class and dignity collide before “one shot” takes on a devastating final meaning.
Written byLee Summers
- Cast
- 6 actors, 3 men / 3 women, with doubling
- Running time
- 10 minutes
- Content
- Strong language
From the anthology Lift Every Voice and Slay
Pips
Moving between the AIDS crisis and the present, a Black queer artist and educator confronts the friends he lost, the memories he carries and the painful responsibility of passing a generation’s story forward.
Written byLee Summers
- Cast
- 4 actors
- Running time
- Approximately 60 minutes
- Content
- Mature themes involving HIV/AIDS, illness, grief and loss
From the anthology Lift Every Voice and Slay
Obama Drama
On the historic day President Obama endorses marriage equality, a crowded Harlem bus becomes a battleground when one Black gay passenger refuses to let another man’s homophobia silence his joy.
Written byLee Summers
- Cast
- 7 characters, 4 male / 3 female; supporting roles may be doubled where the script permits
- Running time
- 10 minutes
- Content
- Strong language, including homophobic slurs
Reviews for Lee’s Musicals
The Blue Suit, written and directed by Lee Summers, will appear in the Spark Theatre Festival NYC at the TADA! Theater, starring Lee Summers and Richard M. Waits. The short play explores a father and son confronting the impact of racial profiling and the search for dignity in a complicated world. Tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sparktheatrefestival/2109269
The Blue Suit, written and directed by Lee Summers, will appear in the Spark Theatre Festival NYC at the TADA! Theater, starring Lee Summers and Richard M. Waits. The short play explores a father and son confronting the impact of racial profiling and the search for dignity in a complicated world. Tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sparktheatrefestival/2109269
Lee Summers performs a wonderful and refreshingly unique and endearing tribute to my Dad!
(From My Hometown)…captures the spirit of Hitsville USA…
From My Hometown packs in more than 30 songs, including a tribute to the many “Three Man Groups” who paved the way for the breakthrough R&B, soul, funk and Motown acts.
An Energetic and Effervescing Summer Sensation – the high octane musical FROM MY HOMETOWN.
It’s a show that takes you to a musical time past, and the cast succeeds. It’s fun, fast-paced and well-sung.
They’re throwing a party at the American Heartland Theatre. Every night. It’s called From My Hometown…
FROM MY HOMETOWN is a success in virtually every department, largely because its creators have kept things streamlined and simple.
Exuberant and so full of life! (The creators) deserve high praise for knowing what it takes to get an audience on a musical high.
A marvelous trip down R&B memory lane … A great time at the theatre. There are too many fabulous songs to list them all; you have to go see it and experience the show!
FROM MY HOMETOWN hustles faster than any show in New York … The appeal of the show is the chance to hear your favorite tunes sung just the way they sound on the radio. Make no mistake, together, the trio could bring down the house.
You’d have to be stone cold dead not to find yourself tapping your feet and ‘putting your hands together’ during the R&B numbers. HOMETOWN is a fun, rousing evening.
Scads of sweet music and a charismatic cast elevate FROM MY HOMETOWN … A selection of great old songs.
FROM MY HOMETOWN is similar to Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp’s Moving Out – except in this terrific show, the dancers and singers are the same people.
A high energy, low maintenance roof raiser. The feel-good pocket musical features three dynamite performers. This sassy, soulful show must not be allowed to skip town at the end of its all-too-brief run.
Beginning at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, this paean to a more melodic time in popular music is a double dip into nostalgia. …A story of hope, struggle, friendship…ultimate triumph…
The song list glides through everything from “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” and “Sweet Georgia Brown” to selections from the “Songbook” albums Fitzgerald recorded celebrating great composers such as Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and Rodgers and Hart.
The Funkentine Rapture is a delightful romp through an era and it’s music. Truly original, it evokes the spirit of Funk and Harlem of the 70’s as well as any jukebox musical ever could. In fact better. I highly recommend it.
…Three incredibly talented young men, are on stage for 90 minutes delivering the most tantalizing music and dancing from the past and present. The setting is the Big Apple, mostly in and around the Apollo Theater. The band is as good as it gets…
Lee Summers incorporation of the band being used as ensemble members was as brilliant as John Doyle using his Sweeney Todd ensemble as the pit orchestra. I was also moved by Lee’s brilliant timely direction of Ms. Payne’s performance of Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington’s “The Nearness of You”.