Sommer was born in Toledo, Ohio, and raised in Stillwater, Minnesota, where he was educated at Oakland Junior High School and Stillwater Area High School.[1] He then went on to attend Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he majored in theater and sang in The Concordia Choir.[2] Sommer studied improvisation at the Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis, and started an improv group, the Slush Puppies, in Moorhead.[3] In 2004, he received his Master of Fine Arts in acting from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.[4] Sommer returned to the school in 2006 to teach icebreakers to law students, and again in 2008 to do an improv workshop with undergraduate theatre students.