David Hein
David Hein is a Canadian librettist, composer-lyricist, musician, and actor best known for co-writing the Broadway musical Come from Away with his writing partner and wife, Irene Sankoff.
Early life and education
Hein was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. As a teenager he attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa where he developed an interest in Newfoundland folk music after hearing the band Great Big Sea.Hein began his university studies at Carleton University before transferring to York University in Toronto, Ontario, where he met Irene Sankoff.
Early career and move to New York
After graduating, he and his fiancée moved to New York City in 1999 so that Sankoff could study acting at the Actors Studio while Hein worked as a musician and songwriter.They were living in New York during the September 11 attacks, and Hein has said that the mutual support among neighbours after 9/11 later informed themes in
My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding
After spending several years studying and working in New York the couple returned to Toronto where Hein wrote a song "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding", about his mother’s coming out and later marriage, which he performed at her wedding reception. Encouraged by the response, he and Sankoff expanded it into an autobiographical stage musical.The musical premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2009, where it became a sold-out hit, and then picked up by Mirvish Productions for a run at Toronto's Panasonic Theatre before touring Canada.
Come from Away
As a result of My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding success, theatre producer Michael Rubinoff approached Hein and Sankoff with his idea about a show based on Operation Yellow Ribbon in which residents of Gander, Newfoundland, housed 7,000 airline passengers who had been stranded at Gander Airport as a result of the grounding of all North American air flights following the September 11 attacks, which became the musical Come from Away.Following the success of Come from Away, in 2023 Sankoff and Hein were awarded honorary doctorates by Memorial University of Newfoundland.