David Peake

David Peake is a Melbourne based writer/performer. He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts Music Theatre course in 2005 and continued performing and training at St Martin’s Youth Arts Centre, which sparked an interest in creating unique and bold theatre. After 3 years of participating in various courses and productions, St Martin’s offered David a position co-tutoring a new Music Theatre workshop program for teenagers, writing new material for them to perform.

In the years that followed, David’s writing was selected from submissions across the country for 2 writers workshop series featuring Broadway composers – Ahrens/Flaherty in 2009 and Stephen Schwartz in 2010. Schwartz commented that his work was “immediately recognisable as new and uniquely Australian.”

Receiving positive and constructive feedback from these industry experts, he became resolved to refine his skills in writing. His first musical ‘Avoid’ was selected as part of the ‘New Musicals Australia’ inaugural season in 2011, receiving a 10 day workshop and staging by industry professionals in Sydney. The experience of developing the show throughout several very different processes taught David valuable lessons in how to make a show the best it can be. By refining his ideas and taking feedback, 'AVOID' proved to be a terrific learning curve in the fundamentals of writing a musical.

His next show, 'Song Cyclist' was a response to the growing trend of middle aged men taking up cycling in Melbourne. Starring Martin Lane and a supporting cast of emerging music theatre talents, it was well received at Chapel off Chapel in the 2013 fringe festival.

His most recent show, 'The Big Gay Cruise' played at Theatre Works in St Kilda as part of Midsumma festival and wowed audiences with it's brash and unapologetic gayness, with Theatre Press saying: "Peake's songwriting skills excel...striking numbers about life and love."

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