David is a playwright, bookwriter, lyricist, composer, director, teacher and “script doctor.”

His three plays Hotel Buzz, American Guernica, and I Ragazzi (this last co-written with his daughter, Madeleine Goldsmith Garner) are available for production through Broadway Licensing and the Dramatists Play Service (www.dramatists.com).

On Broadway, David was billed as “Script Consultant” for Motown The Musical for which he wrote the book and original lyrics with Motown founder Berry Gordy (Charles Randolph Wright, dir.). After being nominated for four Tony® Awards, Motown enjoyed a successful two-and-a-half year run on Broadway (Lunt-Fontanne Theater), which was followed by a three-year stand in London’s West End (Shaftesbury Theatre), two US National tours, and a UK tour.

In the West End, David wrote the lyrics for Imagine This (New London Theatre and Theatre Royal Plymouth, Timothy Sheader, dir.), a filmed production of which aired on PBS and is part of the ShopPBS catalogue, as well as a 2017 revival at the Union Theatre off-West End.)

Off-Broadway at the 2nd Stage Theatre, David served as Story Consultant for the musical Invisible Thread (formerly known as Witness Uganda) with Diane Paulus, dir.

In Los Angeles, David wrote the book & lyrics for the celebrated “five women at an airport” musical Having It All (Ovation nominee, Best Musical, Best Book; also at the Laguna Playhouse) with John Kavanaugh (music) and Wendy Perelman (co-book), Richard Israel, dir.

David is currently represented at the National Theatre of Israel in Tel Aviv with book & lyrics for Masada 1942 (Shuki Levy, music, Moshe Kepten, dir).

Among his many television and songwriting credits, David wrote the lyrics for the song “My Once Upon A Time” from “Descendants 3,” with music by Kavanaugh, performed by Dove Cameron, for the Disney Channel; the soundtrack reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Also for Disney, he wrote the lyrics for all the songs from “Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas,” “Mickey’s A Tale Of Two Witches” (2021), and “Mickey’s Halloween Trick Or Treats” (2023), with music by Beau Black. All three features were nominated for multiple Emmy® Awards and Kidscreen Awards, winning one each.

David is also proud to have written the lyrics for the song “Up Against The Wind” (music by Christopher Young), that underscores Queen Latifah’s epic death scene at the climax of New Line Cinema’s classic film Set It Off.

Most recently, David made his Carnegie Hall debut as author/curator/original (parody) lyricist of the multimedia retrospective Thirty Years of Stephen (Flaherty), which transplanted from their mutual alma mater, the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati to Carnegie Hall in January of 2024, directed by Marcia Milgrom-Dodge.

Prior to that, his musical Fallout (book, with music and lyrics by Dmitry Koltunov, about a family of Ukrainian immigrants escaping Soviet anti-Semitism in the aftermath of Chernobyl to resettle in Brighton Beach), enjoyed a successful premiere as an official selection of the 2023 NAMT Theatre Festival, with future productions in development.

David is the Co-Founder (with composer Paul Gordon) and Artistic Director of the production company Virtual Stage Lab, which film-captures complete original musicals and plays as development and visual demos for licensing and production. In 2025 VSL launched the filmed musical projects Ribbit by Paul Gordon, the updated re-imagining of Having It All (now entitled Five Women At An Airport) by Goldsmith & Kavanaugh and the Gordon/Goldsmith musical My Improbable Sisters, which he also directed. All these titles are available to stream for free on the Virtual Stage Lab page on YouTube.

Future works by David include (but are not limited to) Good Man (book, music & lyrics, based on the life of Las Vegas Mob Attorney/Mayor Oscar Goodman), a historical reimagining of Miracle On 34th Street with music by John Kavanaugh and Dickens’ Little Dorrit (lyrics, with music by Paul Gordon and book by David & John Caird, to be directed by Caird).

David lives in Jersey City with his wife, Broadway’s Bryonha Marie.