David Rigano is a NYC based playwright and director specializing in new musicals. With his brother Paul he has written the musicals Awaken: a Sleeping Beauty musical, Get the Duchess, We Were Wild, You Heard It Here (NY Winterfest Award for Best Musical Score), The Holy Cows of Credence South Dakota, and Facing East, the last two with frequent collaborator Mark-Eugene Garcia. David has directed workshops and productions of the new musicals Wild Women of Planet Wongo, All Star: the Best Broadway Musical, Nutcracker! the musical, and his own award-winning You Heard It Here.

David’s plays include Not the Same Old Story (Wide-Eyed Winks semi-finalist), Life Lessons with Susan Gail (Wide-Eyed Winks semi-finalist), What We Deserve (The Write-Offs inaugural reading, 2019), Opposite Attraction, Eulogies, and What’s the Buzz? (originally workshopped at the Scantic River Productions short play festival). David co-hosts the official Drama Book Shop podcast The Drama Book Show along with Mark-Eugene Garcia.

As an educator, David has taught acting, improv, storytelling, and directing at TADA! Youth Theatre, French Woods Festival for the Performing Arts, The Children’s Acting Academy, Manhattan New Music Project, and various thespian societies in the tristate area. For the NJ and PA Thespian conferences, he developed the workshops “Focus on Staging,” a one-hour workshop on staging scenes in different theatre configurations, and “Playmaking,” a two-part workshop on developing ideas through collaboration which is currently being adapted into a book.