Dylan Schifrin (he/him) is a playwright, composer, lyricist, librettist and TV writer specializing in new musical storytelling for the stage and screen.

Born and raised in LA, attending undergrad at Yale, and now living bicoastally between LA and NYC, his writing style is equally informed by the modern theatre, musical theatre, and television landscapes. As a biracial Latinx, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ artist, he seeks to blend satire, spectacle, and music to tell often-political, often-queer outsider narratives.

Dylan received his B.A. in Musical Theater Composition through Yale College's Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater (Class of 2020). He studied dramatic writing under Donald Margulies, Michael Korie and Marsha Norman, as well as composition under Scott Frankel and Jeanine Tesori.

As a playwright and theater composer, Dylan has been distinguished by the Blank Theatre Company, Playwrights Project, the National YoungArts Foundation (Finalist in Playwriting), ASCAP, The Foundation for New American Musicals, New Musicals Inc. (2021 New Voices Project Finalist) and The Civilians. He is a six-time published author at YouthPLAYS, through which his work has been licensed and performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia. Dylan is a member of ASCAP, the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Librettists Workshop and the IAMA Theatre Company Under 30 Playwrights Lab (2021-2022).

In the film/TV space, Dylan's writing has been distinguished by Stage 32 and the Filmmatic TV Pilot Awards. Additionally, Dylan has held numerous creative production internships (Marc Platt Productions, Jason Bateman's Aggregate Films, Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions), served as a script reader at the 2021 Slamdance Screenplay Competition, and currently works as a music assistant on an upcoming musical series at Hulu. Dylan is a co-creator and in-house composer/lyricist at the LA-based social media production company Pixel Playhouse, which has garnered over 300k total followers across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch.

At Yale, Dylan served as managing editor and director of online content for the Yale Record, Yale's humor and satire publication (and oldest publication overall). He music directed several undergraduate musicals, including the first ever collegiate production of Broadway's A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. He also sang in and arranged music for the Yale Spizzwinks(?) a cappella group, in which he travelled to all inhabited continents, managed tours to Los Angeles and Iceland, and organized a free public concert and musical exchange with his family in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

PROJECTS & WRITING SAMPLES
(stuff I'm working on)

Y2K: A SURVIVALIST MUSICAL | Full-Length Stage Musical

120 min, 3f 4m (optional ensemble of 3+)

Book, Music and Lyrics by Dylan Schifrin

This immersive musical about echo chambers, conspiracy, "us" vs. "them" mentality, and the danger of misinformation follows a young doomsday prepper's escape from a cultish, Y2K-era survivalist colony as she grapples with uncertainty in a new world increasingly resistant to the truth.

Concert in the Tin Pan Alley 2 Concert Series, 2021 (Upcoming)
Virtual Workshop at the New Voices Project, New Musicals Inc. | Disney Imagineering, 2021
Selected Submission for the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Bookwriting Basics Workshop, 2020
Streamed Live on Twitch @ Pixel Playhouse to an audience of over 500k, 2020
Production at Yale University, The Yale Drama Coalition, Creative and Performing Arts Award Recipient (cancelled due to COVID-19), 2020
Developmental Thesis Reading at Yale University within the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theatre, 2019
Concert at MUSI-CAL, The Foundation for New American Musicals @ The Rockwell Table and Stage, 2019

Y2K: A Survivalist Musical at MUSI-CAL, Foundation for New American Musicals (feat. Cami Árboles)

THE BRIS WHISPERER | Half-Hour Original Comedy Pilot

When a freak accident at a bris grants Benzi Frumkin, Jewish medical school dropout, the ability to talk to babies, he must seek their guidance in order to put his life back together.

IN PIECES | Half-Hour Original Comedy Pilot

In this highly visual world of sculpture and sabotage, Casey must overcome suspicion, paranoia, and rivals’ attempts break her as she and her misfit friends survive a cutthroat fine arts conservatory. Based on true events.

More at Coverfly

In Development

UPPIES | Full-Length Stage Musical

Inspired by the exposé documentary film Smile Till It Hurts, UPPIES (working title) tells the story of the reactionary, political performance organization Up With People and its young LGBTQ+ members during the late 1960s as they struggle to reconcile mission with identity amidst a democracy in crisis. In development in the BMI Musical Theatre Librettists Workshop.

Semifinalist (Pitch), The Civilians R&D Group, 2021

UNTITLED CORPORATE PLAY | Full-Length Play with Music

Six recruits are onboarded to an occult corporation in Antarctica in this lurid meditation on hustle culture, burnout, and the growing anti-work movement. In development in the IAMA Under 30 Playwrights Lab.

COLLABORATIONS, PUBLICATIONS, SHORTS
(stuff that's done)

KEY CHANGE | 30min, 1f 7m or 1f 7 non-males

A college junior comes out as trans to her all-male a cappella group, prompting discussions of history, tradition and masculinity. An interrogation of the all-male space based on my own experiences in collegiate all-male a cappella.

Selected Submission for the IAMA Theatre Under 30 Playwrights Lab, 2021
Published by YouthPLAYS, 2021

ALL OF YOU | 40min, 3f 4m

An prodigious chemist with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) risks everything to free herself from the pain of her past. A play that questions whether escaping the pain of losing the ones you love is worth losing them entirely.