LEVY LEE SIMON - Bio
Award winning writer, actor, director, producer, and recent author, Levy Lee Simon is originally from Harlem USA, and a graduate of the University of Iowa Playwright’s Workshop, MFA. He is a member of the Actor’s Studio, (Playwright/Directors Unit,) the Tent Playwright’s Collective and the Robey Theatre Company. Levy Lee has forty-five stage productions to his credit, inclusive of award winning and nominated plays: For the Love of Freedom, the trilogy; Toussaint, Dessalines and Christophe. (Two NAACP nominations for Best Playwright and an Ovation nomination for Best Full Length Play,) The Bow Wow Club, (Lorraine Hansberry Award/ Best Full Length Play) Same Train, (OOBR Award/Best Play) The Stuttering Preacher (2006 -Best Plays Theatre Year Book selection,) and The Guest at Central Park West. (winner of Audelco Awards/Best Playwright and Dramatic Production of the Year.) In 2022 he was awarded, ‘Playwright of the Year,’ by the San Diego Writers Festival. His latest projects include: A Heated Discussion – Revisited, (Robey Theatre Company,) Gentrified, Metaphor of the Drums, and Fractured. (Workshop production New Circle Theatre. Company.)
He wrote, acted in, and co-produced, his feature film, The Last Revolutionary, which premiered at the Pan African Film Festival 2017, and can now be seen on Amazonprime.com. The Stuttering Preacher feature film is scheduled for theatrical release later this year. He has optioned film and television scripts to studios in Hollywood and New York, and has several projects in development.
As an actor, Levy Lee has appeared On Broadway, Off Broadway, regional theatres, England and the Caribbean, in over 60 productions. In 2022 he received a “Best Supporting Actor” nomination from the Colorado Theatre Guild for his performance in In The Upper Room by Beaufield Berry, at Denver Center 2022. In 2023, he performed his first live solo show, entitled Odyssey –Race and Racism in the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Levy Lee Simon’s directing credits include: Dutchman by Amiri Baraka, (National Black Theatre Festival selection) Breathe by Javon Johnson, (NBTF selection) Leftovers by Josh Wilder, (Great Plains Theatre Conference) and With a Little Help – It’s John Belushi by Jack Zullo. (Theatre 80, Off Broadway NYC) Plus, numerous staged readings in NYC, LA and across the country.
He can now be called an author since launching his first book, a memoir, Odyssey Towards the Light.