Lee Summers

Lee Summers, born in 1958 in Nashville, Tennessee, is an American actor, singer, director, librettist, composer, lyricist, and theatre producer whose career spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, television, and film. He has also served as an adjunct professor at New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development's department of Music and Performing Arts Professions since 2020.

Summers began his professional career performing on the Showboat at Opryland USA while enrolled at Tennessee State University. During his senior year, he left TSU to tour in the role of Porgy in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. He relocated to New York City in 1980, and on his first night in Manhattan he met choreographer Michael Peters, whose credits include Dreamgirls and the music video for Beat It. That encounter led directly to Summers making his Broadway debut in the original production of Dreamgirls, a credit that anchors his Broadway record spanning 1981 to 2001. He later reprised his Dreamgirls role at the Dreamgirls 20th Anniversary Benefit Concert, which featured Lillias White, Billy Porter, Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis, and Heather Headley. At the invitation of Broadway vocal arranger Chapman Roberts, known for Five Guys Named Moe, Summers also performed at Carnegie Hall.

In 1986, following a period performing in Monte Carlo with Jenifer Lewis, Summers returned to Indiana to develop a one-man show. During that time he suffered a near-fatal car accident, and his recovery gave rise to his work as a stage writer. The result was From My Hometown, which he created, performed in, and eventually produced. In 2003, partnering with Amas Musical Theatre and Ben Blake, Summers made his producing debut with a developmental production of From My Hometown at the Kirk Theatre in New York City. The production transferred commercially to the Gramercy Theatre in 2004, with Summers serving as lead producer. His one-person show Winds of Change earned him the 2010 Bistro Award for Best Entertainer.

His writing career led Summers to membership in the Dramatists Guild of America. Among his notable collaborations is If These Shoes Could Talk, a tap-dance musical co-created with Kevin Ramsey and premiered at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, later retitled I Remember Harlem. The production starred tap dancer Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers in his farewell stage performance. For that work, Summers and Ramsey became the first recipients of the New Professional Theatre Award, an honor subsequently given to Michael R. Jackson, Katori Hall, and Colman Domingo. Summers also collaborated with Maurice Hines on Ella, First Lady of Song, for which Summers serves as book writer and director, and on Yo' Alice, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for which Summers is librettist and co-lyricist and co-composer alongside Timothy Graphenreed. Ella, First Lady of Song premiered at Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey in 2004 starring Freda Payne, was produced again by MetroStage in Alexandria, Virginia in 2014, followed by a production at the Delaware Theatre Company in 2018, and was produced by the Madison Theatre at Molloy College in 2022, where it received six Audelco nominations and won five, including Best Musical. In 2023, Crossroads Theatre marked twenty years of Ella, First Lady of Song productions with a tribute event written and directed by Summers. Crossroads founding producer Ricardo Khan and board member emeritus Richard Nurse credited the musical with generating the revenue that allowed the theatre to reopen after it had closed by 2003, despite having won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Regional Theatre.

Summers' funk musical The Funkentine Rapture was selected for the 2005 National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival, presented in workshop at Theatreworks Silicon Valley starring Billy Porter and directed by Robert Kelly. In June 2017, the work was presented in concert at 54 Below starring James Monroe Iglehart and Lillias White.

As a director, Summers received the Audelco Award for Best Director of a Musical in both 2018, for On Kentucky Avenue, and 2022, for Ella, First Lady of Song. He also received the 2022 BroadwayWorld award for Best Director of a Musical for the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival's production of Hair: The Tribal Love-Rock Musical. In 2015, he directed the world premiere of Acappella The Musical for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, which earned three Excellence Awards. His directorial work has been presented at venues including Urban Stages, Amas Musical Theatre, the John Houseman Theatre, New World Stages, the Triad Theatre, Flushing Town Hall, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Cell Theatre, Harlem Repertory Theatre, and the Pearl Theatre Company. In 2018, Summers was also nominated for an Audelco Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for On Kentucky Avenue.

Summers has appeared in a range of television and film roles. He played a member of Elijah Muhammad's FOI in the 1992 film Malcolm X directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington. His television credits include the role of Dr. David Monroe on Law and Order, a turn-of-the-century cook on Boardwalk Empire, and a police sergeant opposite Tom Selleck on Blue Bloods.

Summers studied theatre at Tennessee State University and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dramatic Writing from SUNY Empire State College. He holds an MFA in musical theatre writing from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.