The 2026 season lineup at LTV Studios will kick into high gear on Sunday evening at 7:30 when Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea series will bring Norm Lewis to Wainscott. Co-produced by Donna Rubin and Josh Gladstone, LTV’s executive director, the series features acclaimed cabaret performers.
“I am really excited by the way the Hamptons Summer Songbook has grown,” said Rubin, who is a veteran Broadway performer herself. “The cabaret community is growing here in the Hamptons. Everyone who has joined us tells us that they love the venue, and that we have created a cozy, intimate space. We have another star-studded season ahead, starting with Broadway star Norm Lewis.”
Subsequent programs will feature Ann Hampton Calloway (July 11); Klea Blackhurst and Billy Stritch (July 18); Eric Yves Garcia and Maria Abous, produced and hosted by David Alpern (July 25); Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano, written and hosted by Laurence Maslon (Aug. 1); KT Sullivan, Mark Nadler, Stephanie Pope, and Christine Pedi (Aug. 22); Pamela Morgan (Aug. 23), and Donna McKechnie (Aug. 29).
“Yes, we broadcast 24/7 on two public access, education, and government channels, as we have for 40-plus years, plus YouTube on demand,” Gladstone said. “But we’re so much more: We’re the Off Off Broadway of the Hamptons, presenting so many surprises in our funky, black-box performance studio.”
Lewis, a Tony, Grammy, Emmy, and SAG Award nominee, will make his Hamptons debut after starring in numerous film and television roles, not to mention leading roles on Broadway as Porgy in “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” in 2011, Inspector Javert in “Les Misérables” in New York and on London’s West End (2010), and Coalhouse Walker Jr. in a “Ragtime” concert at Lincoln Center (2013). In 2014 he assumed to title role in “The Phantom of the Opera,” becoming the first Black actor to play that role on Broadway and the third worldwide, and he returned to Broadway in 2021 as Reginald Mabry in “Chicken & Biscuits.”
In his New York Times review of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” Ben Brantley wrote, “Mr. Lewis, a Broadway veteran, combines modesty and dignity as the crippled Porgy. His singing voice is supple and smooth, and his ‘I Got Plenty of Nothing’ is rendered with a charming nonchalance.”
Of “Ragtime,” Diane Short LaRue, a critic writing as Bookchickdi, said, “Some of the highlights included the incomparable Norm Lewis (‘Porgy and Bess’) as Coalhouse Walker Jr., who transforms from a soulful musician desperately in love with the beautiful Sarah to a vengeful man seeking justice after a racial incident spirals into tragedy. His deep, rich voice is best expressed on ‘Make Them Hear You’ and his beautiful duet with Patina Miller (‘Sister Act’), ‘Wheels of a Dream.’ ”
As for “The Phantom of the Opera,” Charles Isherwood of The New York Times said, “Mr. Lewis makes a fine meal of the role. His Phantom is imposing in his willfulness, as his lustrous voice comes booming down from the heavens, and touching in his energetic but unrequited love for Christine. The moment of anguish when she instinctively recoils in disgust at his disfiguration struck a note of sharp pathos.”
Other theater credits include the Broadway revival of “Once on This Island” and Off Off Broadway in the title role of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at the Barrow Street Theater. The latter role earned him the AUDELCO Award as best lead musical actor.
Lewis has been seen on PBS in the Live From Lincoln Center productions of “Showboat” with Vanessa Williams, “Norm Lewis: Who Am I?,” “New Year’s Eve: A Gershwin Celebration with Diane Reeves,” as well as “American Voices” with Renée Fleming. His additional television credits include “Women of The Movement,” “Law and Order,” “Dr. Death,” “Mrs. America,” “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “The Blacklist,” and “Blue Bloods,” as well as his recurring role as Senator Edison Davis on the hit drama “Scandal.”
He is also a founding member of Black Theatre United, an organization which stands together to help protect Black people, Black talent, and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in theater and communities across the country.
Lewis will be accompanied on piano by Isaac Harlan, who has worked in New York City as a pianist, music director, and orchestrator. Harlan has also played concerts for Shoshana Bean, Brandon Victor Dixon, and Darius de Haas, among others, and has worked on developing musicals by writers such as Michael McElroy, Tituss Burgess, Alex Gemignani, and Black Thought.
General admission tickets are $150. V.I.P. reserved cocktail table seating is $200 and includes a drink ticket. Bottle service is also an option for V.I.P. ticketholders.
