He graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in English and then worked as a poet and short story writer.
According to Lyons, "I was bumming around the East coast, and I saw a theatre company do an opening act for Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson in a dive bar in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
[2] Lyons located a summer internship at People's Light and Theatre in Pennsylvania where he found Murphy Guyer as a role model.
[1] In 1987 Lyons was working as the production manager for a company called Project III that produced a show at the Off-Off-Broadway Ohio Theatre.
When the new landlords refused to renew his lease in 2010, the theater closed, and Lyons established the New Ohio Theatre in the West Village.