Associate Professor
Office Location: ASC 284
(205) 996-5299
Office Hours: By appointment
Education:
- BM, Oklahoma City University, Musical Theatre
- MFA, Goddard College, Interdisciplinary Arts concentration in Performance Creation
Roy Lightner is an award-winning theatre creator, director, choreographer, and educator born and raised in Kansas City. He graduated summa cum laude from Oklahoma City University with a degree in Musical Theatre; and received his Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts with a Concentration in Performance Creation from Goddard College.
Roy currently serves as the Artistic Director for the 2-time TONY Award Winning Red Mountain Theatre. He was the Associate Artistic Director for the Transcendence Theatre Company, and also on the Musical Theatre Faculty of Ithaca College.
Roy has taught courses at Arizona State University and Cornell University. His work as a creator, director, and choreographer spans internationally, including productions and immersive events for Google, New London Barn Theatre, Lincoln Center, the Stephen Sondheim Center, Transcendence Theatre Company, MTWichita, Music Theatre of Kansas City, GEVA Theatre, Cape Playhouse, Westin Playhouse, Depot Theatre, and more.
As a creator/director/choreographer his credits include: Red Mountain Theatre’s productions of Bright Star, Shrek, ONCE, and Holiday Spectacular; Transcendence Theatre Company’s productions of Oh, What a Night! (2015 Winner - Best Director, Broadway World San Francisco), Superheroes in Love, and Music of the Night; New London Barn’s Newsies; New York City Opera’s Lucky to Be Me (Lincoln Center, assistant to Peggy Hickey), Hairspray, Miss Saigon (Sondheim Center), Hound of the Baskervilles (Cape Playhouse, New Jersey Rep, Westin Playhouse, Depot Theatre), Bring It On (Music Theatre of Kansas City), Hairspray (Winner - Best Director, Broadway World KC), Thoroughly Modern Millie, Good News, Urban Cowboy, Starmites, Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and more.
Dance Concert Choreography credits include: two full-length original choreographic works Under the Covers (Ithaca College) and In Your Eyes (Miller-Marley Ballet Company), The Oklahoma City Dance Project, NYC’s Community Dance Project, New York City’s Jazz Choreography Enterprise, Astoria Fine Arts and B.C. Beat. Performance credits total over 40 professional productions.
As a national director for Dancers Inc., he toured the country as a Master Class teacher. Roy has taught at New York City’s Professional Performing Arts School, as well as created the contemporary/musical theatre dance program for the Astoria School of Fine Arts. Roy received 5 National Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival awards for his work on an original production Disconnect, including Special Achievement in Directing and the Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Award. In 2021, he was the recipient of the Dorothy Schwartz Outstanding Educator Award from the Alabama Conference of Theatre.