Roy Lightner

Singh Artistic Director

Roy Lightner is an award-winning theatre creator, director, choreographer, and educator born and raised in Kansas City. He currently serves as Associate Professor in Musical Theatre at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Previously, Roy served as the Associate Artistic Director for Transcendence Theatre Company in Sonoma, CA, and on the Musical Theatre faculty of Ithaca College. He has also taught at Arizona State University and Cornell University.

Previous directing/work at RMT includes: Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, Disney’s Frozen, Disney’s Freaky Friday, Disney & Cameron Mackintosh’s Mary Poppins, Sister Act, Shrek the Musical, Bright Star, Once, Holiday Spectacular, The Roaring 20s, and RMT Grand Opening events. His work as a creator, director, and choreographer spans internationally, including productions and immersive events for Google, Lincoln Center, the Stephen Sondheim Center, Transcendence Theatre Company, MTWichita, Music Theatre of Kansas City, GEVA Theatre, Cape Playhouse, Weston Playhouse, Depot Theatre, Kitchen Theatre, New Jersey Rep, and more — totaling over 60 productions worldwide. As a performer, Roy has appeared in more than 40 musical productions around the world.

Recently, Roy received five National American College Theatre Festival awards for an original production, including Special Achievement in Directing and the Citizen Artist Award. In 2021 he received the Dorothy Schwartz Outstanding Educator Award from the Alabama Conference of Theatre. Roy graduated from Oklahoma City University with a degree in Musical Theatre and earned his MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts (Performance Creation) from Goddard College.