David Lefort Nugent is a playwright, composer and the artistic producer of The Academy, a New York City-based multi-disciplinary company. Recent credits include The Academy’s productions of his indie rock musical Open the Dark Door in the New York Musical Theatre Festival (Next Link jury selection, Stratford Festival of Canada commission) and his circus musical Ugo’s Last Dance (Foundry Theatre Producer’s Chair). His plays have been presented and/or developed at Playwrights Horizons, Lark Play Development Center, Medicine Show Theatre and Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater (NYC), the Stratford Festival of Canada (Stratford, ON), Theatre Network and Workshop West (Edmonton, AB), the Ottawa Fringe Festival, and the Yale Cabaret (New Haven, CT). David has led playwriting workshops for disabled veterans at the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped, mentored and taught young playwrights at the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Dwight Edgewood Project and the Florida State Thespian Festival, and is a guest lecturer on musical theatre at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the recipient of the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust grant, NYSCA artist creation grant, G.P Baker Memorial Scholarship, Eldon Elder Fellowship, John D. and Rose H. Jackson Research Fellowship, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee scholarship and numerous Theatre Project grants from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. David holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama and a BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta.