S. Dylan Zwickel

S. Dylan Zwickel

Born and raised in Los Angeles, I've spent the past 7 years in a passionate love affair with New York. The day after I collected my shiny little BA in theater from Wesleyan University, I moved to the city, and I've been creating stories here ever since, aside from a few several-month excursions to places like Atlanta (for work) and Ireland (for play). A lover of storytelling in all its forms, I...
Born and raised in Los Angeles, I've spent the past 7 years in a passionate love affair with New York. The day after I collected my shiny little BA in theater from Wesleyan University, I moved to the city, and I've been creating stories here ever since, aside from a few several-month excursions to places like Atlanta (for work) and Ireland (for play). A lover of storytelling in all its forms, I started my professional journey by getting an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU, and shortly thereafter participated in the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. As my career has progressed, I've remained passionate about the development of new plays and musicals, both as a writer and as a director, and in recent years, I've also moved into the fiction and film/TV spaces, completing manuscripts for two novels, writing a few pilot and feature scripts on spec, serving as Director's Assistant on the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson, and providing dramaturgical consulting for Crocodile Eyes, a new production company co-founded by Respect director Liesl Tommy. In my spare time, I run a murder mystery party company, Ghost Ship Murder Mysteries, which has been featured in publications such as Real Simple, Oprah Daily, and Los Angeles Magazine.

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Plays

  • The Making and Breaking of Glass by S. Dylan Zwickel
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, drama + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, drama, tragedy
    A single-play retelling of Sophocles’ Theban Trilogy focused on the younger generation: Antigone, Ismene, Polynices, Eteocles, and Haemon. Covering events spanning from the beginning of Oedipus Rex to the end of Antigone, The Making and Breaking of Glass follows the First Family of Greek Tragedy, still rulers of the ancient city of Thebes but styled after characters on a CW teen melodrama, as their carefree,...
    A single-play retelling of Sophocles’ Theban Trilogy focused on the younger generation: Antigone, Ismene, Polynices, Eteocles, and Haemon. Covering events spanning from the beginning of Oedipus Rex to the end of Antigone, The Making and Breaking of Glass follows the First Family of Greek Tragedy, still rulers of the ancient city of Thebes but styled after characters on a CW teen melodrama, as their carefree, privileged world is torn apart first by a plague and then by in-fighting and revolution.
  • Broken City by S. Dylan Zwickel
    Cast: 
    15–25
    ·
    Genre: musical
    Genre: musical
    Set in a violent and mystical metropolis, Broken City uses a percussive and eclectic score to tell the story of a young woman named Noa, who impersonates a legendary mud creature in an attempt to inspire her people to fight back against the oppression they've been facing. When things do not go as planned, she and her brother Daniel end up on opposite sides of a war and must choose between loyalty to their...
    Set in a violent and mystical metropolis, Broken City uses a percussive and eclectic score to tell the story of a young woman named Noa, who impersonates a legendary mud creature in an attempt to inspire her people to fight back against the oppression they've been facing. When things do not go as planned, she and her brother Daniel end up on opposite sides of a war and must choose between loyalty to their cause and loyalty to each other, until one is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to fix their beloved city.
  • The Cardioluthier by S. Dylan Zwickel
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama, romantic comedy
    Genre: drama, romantic comedy
    The Cardioluthier follows two couples as they struggle to understand the mechanics of the human heart... which, in their world, happens to look like a miniature violin. Dakota, a cardioluthier responsible for the creation of custom violin hearts, is perfectly content to remain removed from the people their work benefits until the mysterious Sam commissions a heart for their sister and forces Dakota to consider...
    The Cardioluthier follows two couples as they struggle to understand the mechanics of the human heart... which, in their world, happens to look like a miniature violin. Dakota, a cardioluthier responsible for the creation of custom violin hearts, is perfectly content to remain removed from the people their work benefits until the mysterious Sam commissions a heart for their sister and forces Dakota to consider the implications of their inability to make an unbreakable heart. Thirty years later and miles away, another cardioluthier, Morgan, who fixes broken hearts for a living, is forced to confront their personal demons when their ex, Jamie, demands that they fix the heart they broke. As one couple falls in love, the other rediscovers why they couldn't, and all four gain new perspective on the joys and consequences of love.
  • Halcyon Creek by S. Dylan Zwickel
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: drama, fable/folktale + 2 more
    Genre: drama, fable/folktale, fantasy, romantic comedy
    Nestled high in the mountains somewhere far from the complications of the modern world, Halcyon Creek, USA, is a mining town unlike any other. Rather than mining gold or coal, it mines words— the kind of words that beget ideas. Aside from the few townspeople who make up the Committee responsible for distributing words to the outside world, no one ever leaves Halcyon Creek, and no one ever comes to it… that is,...
    Nestled high in the mountains somewhere far from the complications of the modern world, Halcyon Creek, USA, is a mining town unlike any other. Rather than mining gold or coal, it mines words— the kind of words that beget ideas. Aside from the few townspeople who make up the Committee responsible for distributing words to the outside world, no one ever leaves Halcyon Creek, and no one ever comes to it… that is, until a mysterious young man named Benjamin Elias suddenly appears. With the help of the Committee head’s daughter, Abigail, Ben discovers that Halcyon Creek may not be as utopian as it seems, and the powerful secret it hides could destroy more than just the town.