Biography

David Cale is an award-winning performance artist, playwright, songwriter and actor based in New York City. His solo play "Harry Clarke", starring Billy Crudup, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre and transferred to Audible at Minetta Lane Theatre where it won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show. It then ran at Berkeley Rep, before transferring to London's West End for a nine-week, sold out run at the Ambassadors Theatre. His follow-up solo play, "Sandra", starring Marjan Neshat, also premiered at the Vineyard Theatre. His works as both writer and performer include "We're Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time", for which he wrote the book, lyrics and co-composed the music with Matthew Dean Marsh (Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Show, Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, with Cale and Marsh receiving the Jeff Award for New Musical); "The History of Kisses"; "Palomino"; "A Likely Story"; "Lillian" (Obie Award); "Deep in a Dream of You" (Bessie Award). He wrote the book, lyrics, co-composed the music for and starred in the musical "Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky" (Outer Critics Circle Award nomination), inspired by his experience portraying Floyd Duffner in Alex and Andrew Smith's film, "The Slaughter Rule". His songwriting credits include composing the songs for 600 Highwaymen's "Employee of the Year" (Bessie Award nomination). His newest self-performed solo work "Blue Cowboy" recently premiered at The Bushwick Starr, and his new solo play "The Unknown" starring Sean Hayes will premiere at Studio Seaview beginning January 2026.
- IMDb mini biography by: David Cale