David Rodwin
Thirty years of making art that matters —
and making people laugh.
"The stage truly belongs to Rodwin"
"A master storyteller"
Thirty years of making art that matters —
and making people laugh.
David Rodwin is a nonprofit founder and producer whose career has been defined by building arts organizations from scratch and building them into unique and influential juggernauts. He's also a writer, composer, performer, and filmmaker whose work has inhabited stages and screens across three continents for more than 30 years.
A Moth champion and solo performer in the tradition of his mentor Spalding Gray, Rodwin has written & produced nine evening-length one-man shows touring to sold out crowds at a dozen Fringes from Edinburgh to Edmonton where he's won several awards from Best Solo Performance at the Capital Fringe to the Audience Choice Award at the NY Fringe Festival.
As founder and Producing Artistic Director of Raw Impressions Inc./RIPFest — the New York-based nonprofit he commissioned, developed, and produced 170 world premiere ten-minute musicals at La MaMa ETC, working alongside Oscar, Tony, and Emmy-winning artists, which earned him the Jonathan Larson Award. With his film division RIPFest, Rodwin oversaw the creation of 60 short films and the unique process and extraordinary product led to an invitation to participate in the Sundance Producer's Conference.
In addition to two dozen short musicals and 4 short films, Rodwin has written & composed nine full-length opera/musicals, developed from The O'Neill to New Dramatists, and The Public Theatre to Disney/ASCAP. And his work has been produced at venues from LaMaMa to HeRE, and The Wild Project to American Opera Projects.
He was a member of LA's Sacred Fools for its first 4 seasons where he premiered Virtual Motion and engaged in a multitude of "Fast & Loose" 24-hour theatre productions which along with Ben Krywosz's Playwright/Composer Studio inspired the spirit behind the mission of Raw Impressions, Inc.
Rodwin also worked in the TV writers' rooms at CBS, TNT, and Disney, directed documentary film, and coached executives at some of the world's most recognized companies to find their voice on stage.
He holds degrees from Princeton and Northwestern and studied clowning at Dell'Arte, music at Juilliard, devised theatre with Anne Bogart/SITI Co., and conducting at Tanglewood with the legendary Leonard Bernstein.
"One of the things that makes David so good at encouraging artists and helping them find their focus is that he himself has been such a bold explorer as a creative. He has played in more forms and more media than almost anyone else that I know of in creative space."— Jon Spaihts, Oscar-nominated Screenwriter, Dune
David's theatre work spans solo performance, new opera, musical theatre, and comedic storytelling. His solo shows — from the hyper-opera Virtual Motion to the award-winning F*ck Tinder: a love story — have sold out runs from Edinburgh to Vancouver.
He has also written & composed nine opera/musicals, developed at The O'Neill, New Dramatists, The Public Theatre, ASK, Disney, ASCAP, and Lincoln Center. His work has been produced at LaMaMa, HeRE, Dixon Place, Mabou Mines, PianoFight, The Kraine, The Duplex, The Wild Project, Culture Project, American Opera Projects, Sacred Fools, Fools Fury, Aspen Music Festival, and the Berkshire Theatre Festival.
"Masters of the form like Spalding Gray & Eric Bogosian… Rodwin deserves to be mentioned in such company"
"Inspiring"
"Hilarious and heartbreaking"
"Hypnotizing"
"An exceptional, inspiring talent"
SF Bay Guardian"Delightful… beguiling and finally moving"
"Every 10 minutes [of this show] deserves to be its own Moth story… you will be transfixed"
DC Theatre Scene
At The Keynote Whisperer, we help leaders find their voice and make every word count. Working with executives, scientists, ministers, and artists, we craft speeches and keynotes that balance personal authenticity with organizational vision, weaving in story and humor to transform dry presentations into genuinely compelling experiences.
Our clients have included tech leaders at Microsoft, Disney, SiriusXM, and Apple, scientists presenting groundbreaking research, and executives pitching major product launches at CES. Whether coaching delivery and stage presence or writing from scratch, we bring decades of performance expertise to the boardroom, the conference stage, and everywhere in between.
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This podcast is a conversation exploring the crossroads of Art and Artificial Intelligence. In an age when machines can generate images, prose, music, and motion pictures, Nothing Is Original asks the questions that matter most: What does it mean to create? What can only a human make? And what happens to art, artists and audiences now that AI has devoured everything in recorded human creation?
Come back every week for conversations with artists, attorneys, filmmakers, musicians, technologists, and entrepreneurs who are figuring this out in real time. If David Bowie once said "I'm not an original thinker. What I'm best at doing is synthesizing those things…" then who IS original? What does it mean to be original? And if AI is also just synthesizing all those things — is AI art as legitimate as the work of a human artist?
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Deep in the Mississippi Delta, inside one of America's most storied and brutal prisons, a blues band plays. Redemption: The Parchman Prison Blues Band is a feature documentary about music, incarceration, and the transformative power of art in the most unlikely of places.
Whether you're a presenter, a collaborator, a journalist, or someone who just wants to say hello — David wants to hear from you.
david.rodwin@gmail.com