David Quang Pham is a science communicator, award-winning composer-playwright, and aspiring animation screenwriter in Washington Heights, Manhattan. As a Midwestern child of Vietnamese immigrants, they are drawn to stories about where life can go if you let curiosity take you. As a Vietnamese American scientist, Eastern fables and modern science inform his stories. His notable musicals that personify astrophysics, quantum mechanics, climatology, chemistry, entomology, and botany are respectively: Ellipses (2024 Syracuse NWNV semifinalist, 2023 Theatre About Science International Conference, 2023 Musical Theatre Factory at Signature Theatre, 2023 Milky Way Theatre Company at Theatre 71, 2022 Colorado New Musical Festival, 2022 O'Neill Theater Center semifinalist, 2021 Working Title Playwrights), Tour (2020 Downtown Urban Arts Festival finalist), The Living Fossils, Chemicals in the Water, The Bookworms, and Turnover: A New Leaf (2025 Queer Theatre Kalamazoo, 2024 Great Performances Artist Fellowship Award, 2024 The Tank’s Pridefest, 2024 Theatre on the Verge at Abington Art Center, 2023 Undiscovered Countries Infinite Festival). He collaborated with Stephanie L. Carlin and Marie Incontrera on Life After (2023 NYPL Performing Arts at Bruno Walter Auditorium). He is writing Parallel University, an interactive musical, and other non-fables: The Control Freaks and The Poster Child, a TYA fantasy musical.

David Quang Pham is the 2024 Great Performances Artist Fellowship Award recipient. Milky Way Theatre Company produced a sold-out industry reading of Ellipses in Theatre 71 at Blessed Sacrament during their 2023 Off-Broadway New Works Festival. Ellipses also performed internationally at the Theatre About Science International Conference in Coimbra, Portugal. At Theatre on the Verge’s New Musicals Festival, Turnover was nominated for Best Musical and won Best Book and Best Director (Aliyah Curry). Fang Tseng recently directed The Tank’s 2024 PrideFest concert reading. Queer Theatre Kalamazoo is producing Turnover at Jolliffe Theatre from May 16-18, 2025. Milan Levy is directing this production.

After completing an astrophysics and theatre education at Michigan State University, he studied playwriting as the 2020-2021 New Play and Dramaturgy Apprentice of Working Title Playwrights, Atlanta. He was the 2021-2022 Literary Fellow of Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco. Composer Janelle Lawrence mentors him, helping to forge his broad range of musical styles including pop, punk, tango, and Cai Luong. Harriet Tubman Effect Institute commissioned his music. His interviews with composers for Kennedy Center’s BIPOC Critics Lab are published in The Public and TheaterMania. Alexis Hauk interviewed him in the American Theatre Magazine’s Winter 2024 issue. He also consults on stories that explore STEM. His recent dramaturgical credits are Millennials are Killing Musicals by Nico Juber (2022 29-hour reading, Open Jar Studios) and Allies by Michael McGoldrick (2022 PPADC Hamilton Arts Festival). His recent stage management credit is BAS by Janelle Lawrence and Sugar Vendil (2023 JACK). He is a moderator at LMDA; a screenwriter for the We Forgot the Title sketch group; founding member of CreateTheater and the International Dramaturgy Lab; member of ΣΠΣ, ASCAP, and the Dramatists Guild. He plays trombone in the Queer Big Apple Corps, MUSE’s Sitprobe Experience, and professionally in Marching Band Casting.

His moonbase is in Washington Heights. His earth is Wyoming, Michigan. Be up to lightspeed at sciencetheatre.us and @sciencetheatre.