David Yazbek

David Yazbek was honored as an SCL Ambassador at the annual New York Holiday Party on December 10, 2019.

Yazbek is an American writer, musician, composer, and lyricist who got his break in the early 80s writing for The Late Show with David Letterman, going on to win an Emmy® with the rest of the Letterman team in 1986.

He has since become one of Broadway’s prominent composer/lyricists, known for The Full Monty (2000), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (2010), The Band’s Visit (2017), and Tootsie (2019).

Yazbek won a Tony Award for The Band’s Visit, which opened on Broadway to rave reviews and was on every Best of the Year list for 2017. The show amassed 10 Tony Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical, three Grammy nominations and a Drama Desk Award. His most recent musical, Tootsie, garnered eleven Tony Award nominations including best score.

In the music for screen realm, Yazbek has scored a season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, and the theme song to Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego. He has written hundreds of songs, scripts, scores and jingles for adult and children’s TV.

He has also released four rock albums: Laughing Man (1996), Tock (1998), Tape Recorder: Collected Works (2005), David Yazbek and His Warmest Regards: Evil Monkey Man (2007). Yazbek’s discography also includes the Original Broadway Cast albums of his hit musicals.