COLM SUMMERS
Director • Writer • Artistic Director
(he/him) Colm is an award-winning Irish director and writer from Waterford, Ireland, based in Brooklyn, and the Artistic Director of Working Theater.
His directing includes Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe at Geffen Playhouse, named one of Theatrely’s Best Theater of 2023; the U.S. premiere of Derek Murphy’s The Bad Daters at Paradise Factory; and his Jeff Nominated production of Philip Dawkins’ Audible Original The Comedians at Raven Theatre in Chicago.
He has developed new work with Manhattan Theatre Club, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, the Abbey Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Phoenix Theater Company, Page 73, Clubbed Thumb, Rattlestick Theater, Irish Repertory Theatre, Origin Theater Company, BRIC, Breaking the Binary, Egg & Spoon, The 24 Hour Plays, Little Engine Theater and many more.
Colm was a 2024 Drama League Next Stage Fellow, the inaugural Director-in-Residence at Geffen Playhouse, and a Resident Director at the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s National Theatre. In 2023, he received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Artist Award.
As a playwright, his work has been recognized by the Relentless Awards, and he has received commissions from Irish Arts Center, the Arts Council of Ireland and the Puffin Foundation. He is a member of Origin Theatre Company’s inaugural writers group, and an alum of the Lehman Engels BMI cohort. Colm is a cameo playwright in Mollie Molumby's Half Light, published by Oberon in Fresh Cuts: A Selection of New Plays from Dublin Fringe Festival 2015 + 2016
As an educator, Colm led opera directing at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts from 2024-2026, where he was Director of Opera and professor of acting. He has lectured at Trinity College Dublin, and his academic writing has been published by Brill and Liverpool University Press.
Irish-born. Brooklyn-based.
PRESS
LOS ANGELES TIMES
“A delight.”
— Los Angeles Times, on Every Brilliant Thing
THE BROOKLYN RAIL
“Under Colm Summers’s graceful direction, the play shifts quietly from rom-com into a delicate dual character study.”
— Juan A. Ramírez, on The Bad Daters
CULTURED
“Colm Summers lets his broken cast stay broken. That’s exactly where momentum begins to build.”
— Matthew Gasda, on The Bad Daters
RECOGNITION
NEXT GENERATION ARTIST AWARD
Arts Council of Ireland · 2023
NEXT STAGE FELLOW
The Drama League · 2024
THEATRELY’S BEST THEATER OF 2023
Every Brilliant Thing
JEFF AWARD NOMINEE 2025
The Comedians
INAUGURAL DIRECTOR-IN-RESIDENCE
Geffen Playhouse
RESIDENT DIRECTOR
Abbey Theatre / National Theatre of Ireland
UPCOMING
COMING FALL 2026
By Kate Vozella
Little Engine Theater · New York
October 2026
Directed by Colm Summers
A new play about intimacy, artificial intelligence and what remains irreducibly human when relationships become increasingly mediated by machines.
View Cast and Creatives Announcement
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
By Derek Murphy
Directed by Colm Summers
U.S. Premiere — Paradise Factory, New York
April 23–May 17, 2026
Kate Arrington as Wendy
Shane McNaughton as Liam
“… under Colm Summers’s graceful direction, the play shifts quietly from rom-com into a delicate dual character study.”
— Juan A. Ramírez, The Brooklyn Rail
“Under Colm Summers’ exquisitely modulated direction … the production unfolds with a patience that feels almost radical.”
— Tony Marinelli, TheaterScene.net
ABOUT
For the U.S. premiere of Derek Murphy’s The Bad Daters, I was drawn to the distance between who we are and who we wish we could be for other people.
Wendy and Liam meet after each has been reluctantly pushed back into the dating world. What starts in the recognizable territory of romantic comedy gradually opens into something quieter and stranger: a play about grief, loneliness, self-protection, effort, and the possibility of making a life after loss.
CREATIVE TEAM
Playwright
Derek Murphy
Director
Colm Summers
Scenic Design & Props
Tyler Herald
Lighting Design
Betsy Chester
Costume Design
Kindall Houston Almond
Sound Design
Tye Hunt Fitzgerald
Technical Director
Chase McCloud
Associate Director
Austin Tooley
Stage Manager
Campbell Anidjar
Graphic Design
José Fresán
Marketing
Zachary Reiser / Neon Lights Digital Media
Production Photography
Emma Kazaryan
Photography
Devin Armstrong
Publicity
Ron Lasko / Spin Cycle
Director’s Assistant
Isabella Rossi
Producers
Ken Forman
Derek Murphy
Shane McNaughton
Charmaine Tangonan
Colm Summers
Paradise Factory in association with Strike Crew
"THIS PLAY IS A UNICORN"
- Theatre Beyond Broadway
By Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe
Directed by Colm Summers
Geffen Playhouse
Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater
Los Angeles
September 6–October 29, 2023
Starring Daniel K. Isaac
THEATRELY’S BEST OF 2023
LOS ANGELES DRAMA CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE
“A delight.”
— Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
“A funny, affecting, one-of-a-kind experience.”
— Stage Raw
ABOUT
For my production of Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s Every Brilliant Thing at Geffen Playhouse, our design team transformed the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater into an intimate space in the round (the first time in its history), placing Daniel inside the audience rather than in front of it.
The room became a kind of enormous blanket fort: with over 150 blnakets sourced lovingly from all over the United States, to create an enveloping landscape of crocheted blankets, warm light and color in which performer and audience remained visible to one another.
Every Brilliant Thing opened at Geffen Playhouse in September 2023 and was extended by popular demand through October 29.
The production was subsequently selected by Theatrely among its favorite regional productions of 2023.
CREATIVE TEAM
CAST
Written by
Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe
Director
Colm Summers
Scenic Designer
Sibyl Wickersheimer
Costume Designer
Samantha C. Jones
Lighting Designer
Benedict Conran
Sound Designer
Stephanie Lynn Yackovetsky
Associate Director
Austin Tooley
Intimacy Director
Amanda Rose Villarreal
Dramaturg
Olivia O’Connor
Production Stage Manager
Colleen Danaher
Casting Director
Phyllis Schuringa, CSA
Performer
Daniel K. Isaac
Understudy Performer
Leslie Stevens
COMMUNITY
NEWS
SEPTEMBER 2026
Colm is announced this September as member of Colt Coeur 2026 cohort
Working Theatre announced their 42nd season SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION
MACHINE LEARNING • October 2026
In devlopment!
JULY 2026
THIS MOTHERLESS EARTH • July 6th through Sunday, July 12th.
Kate Vozella and Colm Summers develop a new play through Theaterlab’s Hotel New Work residency.
WORKING THEATER
Since becoming Artistic Director in 2023, it’s been my honor to co-lead the country’s longest running theater dedicated to working-class audiences and artists, off-broadway’s Working Theater.
Our work asks a simple question: What would an American theater built by, for and with working class Americans look like?
In 2024, Jacobin followed the development of Laura Neill’s Foot Wears House, created with workers organizing the REI SoHo store.
“I see our company in part as a third space, where theater can function as cultural organizing.”
— Colm Summers, Jacobin
WORKING THEATER – SEASON 42
2026–27
This season, we’re not just making theater. We’re testing the limits of what a civic theater is capable of by asking: what would an American theater built for working people actually look like? Who gets to make it? Who gets to see it? What should it cost? What happens when we stop accepting that access and artistic excellence are mutually exclusive?