Founding Artistic & Executive Director

Blake White founded Lean Ensemble Theater in the winter of 2015 as a celebration of theater-- the artists that create it as well the patrons who support it. Directing credits for Lean include Proof, The Lifespan of a Fact, Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf, Barefoot in the Park, A Doll’s House Part 2, Good People, The Clean House, Tribes, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, The Glass Menagerie, and God of Carnage. On stage, Blake has appeared in Around the world in 80 Days, Ripcord, Art, The Humans, Who Am I this Time?, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Underpants and The Waverly Gallery.

Elsewhere as a director, Blake has staged productions of Shear Madness (Southeastern Summer Theatre Institute), All My Sons (The Warehouse Theatre), The Lonesome West (Brown County Playhouse), The Glass Menagerie, Boeing Boeing (The Shuler Theater), Matt and Ben, The Pavilion, The Savannah Disputation, The Lady With All the Answers and Venus in Fur (South Carolina Repertory Company).

As an actor, he has been seen on the stages of Actors Theatre of Louisville, Actors Workshop of Boston, The Shuler Theater, Brown County Playhouse, South Carolina Repertory Company, Cider Mill Playhouse, among others, as well as several off- and off-off and not close to broadway companies. Blake has also provided spoken word narration in concerts with the Hilton Head Choral Society and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra. 

Blake is a member of the Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, Actors Equity Association, and serves on the boards of Lean Ensemble Theater, the Beaufort County Alcohol & Drug Abuse Board & the Arts Council of Hilton Head Island.

2024/25 season: What the Constitution Means to Me, A Christmas Carol