David Hein

David Hein is a Canadian librettist, composer-lyricist, musician, and actor. He was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and as a teenager attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa, where exposure to the Newfoundland folk band Great Big Sea sparked an interest in that region's musical traditions. He began his post-secondary education at Carleton University before transferring to York University in Toronto, Ontario, where he met writer and composer Irene Sankoff, who would become both his wife and his primary creative collaborator.

Following graduation, Hein and Sankoff relocated to New York City in 1999, where Sankoff pursued acting studies at the Actors Studio while Hein worked as a musician and songwriter. The couple were living in New York at the time of the September 11 attacks, and Hein has noted that the sense of mutual support among neighbors in the aftermath of those events later shaped the thematic concerns of his most celebrated work.

After several years in New York, Hein and Sankoff returned to Toronto. There, Hein wrote a song titled "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding," drawn from his mother's coming out and subsequent marriage, which he performed at her wedding reception. The positive response led him and Sankoff to develop the material into a full autobiographical stage musical. The show premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2009 as a sold-out production and was subsequently picked up by Mirvish Productions for a run at Toronto's Panasonic Theatre before touring Canada.

The success of that production brought Hein and Sankoff to the attention of theatre producer Michael Rubinoff, who approached them with the story of Operation Yellow Ribbon. That event saw residents of Gander, Newfoundland, shelter approximately 7,000 airline passengers stranded at Gander Airport when North American airspace was closed following the September 11 attacks. Hein and Sankoff developed the material into the Broadway musical Come From Away. The show earned Hein a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical in 2017. Hein's collaborative work with Sankoff is grounded in extensive interviews and community research, and their musicals characteristically blend folk- and pop-influenced music with direct audience address, centering themes of community, identity, and belonging.

In 2023, Hein and Sankoff were awarded honorary doctorates by Memorial University of Newfoundland. The couple have a daughter and divide their time between Canada and other cities where their productions are staged.