David Zellnik is the author of numerous plays and musicals seen in New York and beyond.
His work includes Yank! with composer Joseph Zellnik (Off Broadway 2010: 7 Drama Desk nominations, Best Musical nominations from the Outer Critics’ Circle and Lucille Lortel Foundation) It has received productions in London’s West End, Rio de Janeiro (Winner of CENYM Best Musical of Brazil, 2017), Brisbane, as well as Chicago, Columbus, Richmond, and Louisville. Broadway Workshops directed by David Cromer. The Original Cast Album orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick is available from PS Classics. A Portuguese-language graphic novelization (“Yank: Diario de Guerra”) will be on sale on Amazon Spring 2024.
His plays include The Letters (Developed @NY Stage and Film; World Premiere, Bridge Theatre 2019); The Udmurts(Winner: Equity Library Theatre Competition 2015, semi-finalist O’Neill; World Premiere, Defunkt Theatre Co, Portland, OR); Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom (New Ensemble, Defunkt); and Ariel Sharon Stands at the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodor Herzl (Workshop productions @Theatre J, Culture Project, and Chautauqua Theatre Company). With playwright Ismail Khalidi, he created “Break the Wall,” which commissions and curates short plays about Israel/Palestine from writers including Najla Said, Naomi Wallace, and Kia Corthron.
At Ensemble Studio Theatre, he was a founding member of the Youngblood playwright initiative; he has written three one-acts seen in EST’s Marathon (Killing Hand, For Elise, and Blue Handed) as well as the EST Sloan mainstage full-length Serendib (EST 2008; The Hippodrome 2011), created with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which sent him for two months to Sri Lanka to observe macaques.
He has worked extensively on musicals with three composers. With composer Cecilia Lin, he wrote lyrics for The Noble Family, set to open in both Beijing and Shanghai in 2024/25.
With composer Eric Svejcar, his play with songs The F#@%king Wright Brothers was part of FringeNYC (premiering New Coordinates, Chicago 2014). Their episodic podcast musical Loveville High was released in 2019 featuring Ali Stroker, Isaac Cole Powell, and Hailey Kilgore, among others; it has been downloaded over 110k times. A new Brazilian produced version was released in 2023 (under the title “Amorlândia”). For Disney, he and Eric created Peter Pan Jr. which has been performed over 10K times.
With Joseph Zellnik, in addition to Yank!, his previous musicals include an adaptation of Arthur Giron’s “Flight” for TheaterworksUSA, culminating in the musical First in Flight which toured the country. City of Dreams won the 2002 Nat’l Music Theatre Network competition and was performed at the first Int’l Music Theatre Festival in Cardiff, Wales. Two songs are featured on Alison Fraser's “Men in My Life.” The Zellnik Brothers performed at The Kennedy Center as part of the ASCAP New Voices series.
David’s solo work and fiction has been published by Massachusetts Review and presented at the Actor’s Temple Theatre and Naked Angels in New York.
His work includes Yank! with composer Joseph Zellnik (Off Broadway 2010: 7 Drama Desk nominations, Best Musical nominations from the Outer Critics’ Circle and Lucille Lortel Foundation) It has received productions in London’s West End, Rio de Janeiro (Winner of CENYM Best Musical of Brazil, 2017), Brisbane, as well as Chicago, Columbus, Richmond, and Louisville. Broadway Workshops directed by David Cromer. The Original Cast Album orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick is available from PS Classics. A Portuguese-language graphic novelization (“Yank: Diario de Guerra”) will be on sale on Amazon Spring 2024.
His plays include The Letters (Developed @NY Stage and Film; World Premiere, Bridge Theatre 2019); The Udmurts(Winner: Equity Library Theatre Competition 2015, semi-finalist O’Neill; World Premiere, Defunkt Theatre Co, Portland, OR); Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom (New Ensemble, Defunkt); and Ariel Sharon Stands at the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodor Herzl (Workshop productions @Theatre J, Culture Project, and Chautauqua Theatre Company). With playwright Ismail Khalidi, he created “Break the Wall,” which commissions and curates short plays about Israel/Palestine from writers including Najla Said, Naomi Wallace, and Kia Corthron.
At Ensemble Studio Theatre, he was a founding member of the Youngblood playwright initiative; he has written three one-acts seen in EST’s Marathon (Killing Hand, For Elise, and Blue Handed) as well as the EST Sloan mainstage full-length Serendib (EST 2008; The Hippodrome 2011), created with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which sent him for two months to Sri Lanka to observe macaques.
He has worked extensively on musicals with three composers. With composer Cecilia Lin, he wrote lyrics for The Noble Family, set to open in both Beijing and Shanghai in 2024/25.
With composer Eric Svejcar, his play with songs The F#@%king Wright Brothers was part of FringeNYC (premiering New Coordinates, Chicago 2014). Their episodic podcast musical Loveville High was released in 2019 featuring Ali Stroker, Isaac Cole Powell, and Hailey Kilgore, among others; it has been downloaded over 110k times. A new Brazilian produced version was released in 2023 (under the title “Amorlândia”). For Disney, he and Eric created Peter Pan Jr. which has been performed over 10K times.
With Joseph Zellnik, in addition to Yank!, his previous musicals include an adaptation of Arthur Giron’s “Flight” for TheaterworksUSA, culminating in the musical First in Flight which toured the country. City of Dreams won the 2002 Nat’l Music Theatre Network competition and was performed at the first Int’l Music Theatre Festival in Cardiff, Wales. Two songs are featured on Alison Fraser's “Men in My Life.” The Zellnik Brothers performed at The Kennedy Center as part of the ASCAP New Voices series.
David’s solo work and fiction has been published by Massachusetts Review and presented at the Actor’s Temple Theatre and Naked Angels in New York.