David Zippel
Early life and education[edit]
Zippel was born and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. Falling in love with theater as a child, Zippel first articulated his life's ambition to become a lyricist and director in junior high school.
He attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he contributed lyrics to an equity production of "a bizarre political musical" called Rotunda, which had a brief run in Washington, D.C. before graduating with a B.A. in 1976. Zippel then obtained a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, graduating in the class of 1979. At Harvard, Zippel continued to pursue his ambition of writing several pop songs with singer Pamala Stanley that appeared on her 1979 debut album, This Is Hot, and collaborating on three songs with Wally Harper, Barbara Cook's musical director, whose performance of the songs at Carnegie Hall in 1980 marked Zippel's own New York City theatrical debut.[1]