Zak Berkman

(He/him) Zak has over 30 years of experience producing theatre and developing new plays and musicals. He joined People’s Light as Associate Artistic Director in 2011, became Producing Director in 2013, and was promoted to Producing Artistic Director in 2022. Prior to People’s Light, Zak was Associate to Broadway producer Margo Lion, and the Founding Executive Director of Artistic Programming with Epic Theatre Ensemble, a multi-award winning Off-Broadway theatre company. Highlights include the World and U.S. Premieres of Lights Out: Nat "King" Cole by Colman Domingo and Patricia McGregor, Mud Row by Dominique Morisseau, Project Dawn by Karen Hartman, Barcelona by Bess Wohl, No Child... by Nilaja Sun, Palace of The End by Judith Thompson, and Hannah and Martin by Kate Fodor, as well as the highly acclaimed New York Premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play and multiple Barrymore Award winning revival of Paul Osborne's Morning's At Seven. Zak is a multifaceted artist—writer, composer, director, and dramaturg, His plays include The Harassment of Iris Malloy, Beauty on the Vine, and A Breath Short of Breathing. He was the adaptor/composer for a new music-filled version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that People’s Light produced in 2021 and 2023, as well as the co-author/composer of Such Things As Vampires, which received a Barrymore Award for original music. A former soap writer for NBC’s Days of Our Lives, Zak also wrote two episodes of People’s Light’s Covid-era digital series America 2am. Zak has published articles on Howlround.com and spoken at numerous conferences about the New Play Frontiers Residency & Commission Program at People’s Light as well as other subjects. He is married to Teri Lamm. They have two sons, Eliot and Theo.

For more information on Zak, check out these interviews with him at the launch of our 50th Anniversary Season:
American Theatre Magazine
Vista Today
Philly Voice