LEVY LEE SIMON  - Bio

Multiple award winning writer, actor, director, and producer, Levy Lee Simon is originally from Harlem USA, and a graduate of the University of Iowa Playwright’s Workshop, MFA.  He is the author of over twenty plays, which have received productions in the US and the Caribbean: The Robey Theatre Company, Greenway Arts Alliance, National Black Theatre Festival, The Workshop Theatre, New Federal Theatre,  Algonquin Productions, NJoy Productions – St. Croix- Center Stage, The Freedom Theatre – Phila., Karamu Theatre - Cleveland, Circle Repertory Theatre, and The H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players, to name a few. With, staged readings at: The Labyrinth Theatre,  The Geffen Playhouse, Denver Center, New Jersey Repertory Theatre and many more.   

His, award winning plays include: For the Love of Freedom, the  trilogy, about the Haitian revolution and independence, produced by Danny Glover’s Robey Theatre Company and the Greenway Arts Alliance, which received, 17 NAACP nominations over three years. The Bow Wow Club, winner of the Kennedy Center, Lorraine Hansberry Award for “Best Full Length Play,” produced at the Workshop Theatre in NY and the Stella Adler Theatre in LA, and chosen for the National Black Theatre Festival, 2007. Same Train, (2004 OBBR Award) and, The Guest at Central Park West, winner of the 2007 ‘Audelco Award’ for, ‘Dramatic Production of the Year’ and ‘Best Playwright.’

Other plays by Simon include:TheStuttering Preacher, DAD, Caseload, Smell the Power, Pitbulls and Daffodils, the cult hit, God the Crackhouse and the Devil, The Last Revolutionary, The Magnificent Dunbar Hotel, Gentrified – Metaphor of the Drums, and his latest offering, “Fractured.” Levy Lee, was highly honored with three plays chosen to ‘The National Black Theatre Festival 2015,’ the first artist in the thirty-five year history of the festival to be invited as an actor, writer, director and producer in the same year.  Levy Lee was recently invited into the prestigious Actor’s Studio PDU (Playwright/Directors Unit. His first offering at the PDU was was his new play, FRACTURED.

His directing credits are highlighted with productions of, Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman at Theatre/Theater in LA and the North Carolina National Black Theatre Festival. Javon Johnson’s Breathe at Greenway Court Theatre, and the NBTF, Leftovers by Josh Wilder at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, (Now the Great Plains Theatre Commons) and a number of his own play readings at theatres across the country. 

As a screenwriter, LL has optioned a number of his scripts to studios and productions companies in Hollywood and New York: The Bow Wow Club, (FOX Searchlight) and DAD(40 Acres and a Mule.) He wrote, co-produced, and acted in his first full length feature film, The Last Revolutionary, which premiered at the Pan African Film Festival 2017, and played to film festivals in 2017, and is now on Amazon.com with Indie Rights Films.  Other screenplays by Simon include: God, the Crackhouse and the Devil,In the Jazz Time, 369, Caseload, and Fallen Angels .

As an actor, Levy Lee is a former member of the Circle Repertory Theater Company, The Negro Ensemble Company, and the 127thStreet Repertory Ensemble. He was a cast member in the Pulitzer Prize winning, Tony nominated, TheKentucky Cycle on Broadway,the England production of Ms. Evers’ Boysat the Barbican and Bristol Old Vic, plus over sixty plays Off- Broadway, Off-Off Broadway in regional theatres across the country and the Caribbean. 

Levy Lee, as he prefers to be called, is a proud artist and thespian always seeking to create work that entertains while inspiring and motivating change.