Zak graduated from Yale in 2008 with a B.A. in music composition, with his senior thesis being a musical theater adaptation of the movie Office Space. After a year as Associate Music Director at TONY-winning Signature Theatre in DC, he moved to NYC, where he played piano on Broadway for Wicked, Mean Girls, Motown, and The Color Purple. He left town frequently to music direct and conduct at theaters including the Kennedy Center, Dallas Theater Center, Goodspeed Opera, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, and TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, CA. He also acted in some shows, including the Off-Broadway production of Marshall Pailet’s Triassic Parq, playing the Pianosaurs in this adaptation of Jurassic Parq.
Zak is also a composer/lyricist/bookwriter/screenwriter. He was a longtime member of the BMI Musical Theater Writer’s Workshop in NYC, as well as a composer at the Johnny Mercer Songwriter’s Project with Andrew Lippa and Craig Carnelia. His original work has been performed at Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, and The Kennedy Center. He also writes pop songs and arranges for his barbershop chorus, the Alexandria Harmonizers. His first screenplay, KSM on the Run, made the top 20% at the Austin Film Festival. See “composer” page for more info on his music.
Zak is also a public speaker, having given a TED Talk, “Can Mental ‘Disorder’ Be a Superpower?” in Anchorage (over 100,000 views). He has shared his story about his experience with bipolar as the keynote speaker at the Iowa convention of NAMI (the National Alliance of Mental Illness), as well as many other galas, conferences, and school gatherings. In 2018, he won the Young Leader Award from NAMI NY State for leadership in mental health. See “public speaking” page for more info.