Daniel Gallant is a theatrical producer, playwright, director, lecturer and actor based in New York City, New York. He has served as the executive director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and as director of theater and talk programs for the 92nd Street Y; he is also the author of the short story collection Determined to Prove, and the recipient of a 2022 Fulbright Specialist Fellowship and a 2016 Eisenhower Fellowship. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time Out, the New York Daily News and the New York Post.Gallant, Daniel. "Mayhem Film Review", Time Out New York, 9 November 2017. https://www.timeout.com/us/film/mayhem-2017 . Retrieved 8 February 2018. Gallant is a lecturer and consultant in the fields of institutional marketing, social media and arts technology. Forbes called Gallant a "social media expert". NPR's Planet Money podcast called him "a genius at raising money for artists".. According to The Wall Street Journal, "since late 2009, Mr. Gallant has exploited expanding social-media tools to grow the cafe from a small, volunteer-led venue best known for weekly poetry events to a thriving arts center with partnerships across the city".
Education and early career Gallant grew up in Rockville, MD and attended Sidwell Friends school in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Swarthmore College in 1998, Gallant moved to New York City and worked at talent agency ICM Artists. Gallant produced and directed a number of small theater productions in New York. He received a master's degree in arts administration from Columbia University, and subsequently began working as Director of Theater Programming at the 92nd Street Y's Makor Center.
While at Makor, Gallant curated performances, readings and workshops of numerous plays and musicals. He created the Festival of 'Wrights,Archive of press release for 2003 Festival of 'Wrights at Makor. https://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/rtsnyc/2003-December/001525.html. Retrieved 12 October 2009. a theater series that premiered new work by such artists as Mark O'Donnell, Warren Leight and Craig Lucas and included readings featuring David Strathairn, Dan Hedaya, Paul Rudd, Martha Plimpton and other notable performers. He also moderated on-stage interviews featuring Tony Kushner, Wendy Wasserstein, Norman Mailer, Peter Falk, Neil LaBute, Chazz Palminteri, Liz Swados and other artists.Gans, Andrew "Wendy Wasserstein Part of Makor's Mixed Stage Mondays". Playbill.com. 28 June 2003. http://web.playbill.com/news/article/80345.html . Retrieved 8 October 2009.
Gallant curated theater and talk events and taught classes at the 92nd Street Y's downtown Manhattan venue, 92YTribeca.92Y blog entry and video clips from 6 May 2009 92YTribeca event "Print vs. Blog". http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92ytribeca_video_print_vs_blog_round_one/ . Retrieved 12 October 2009.92YTribeca online listing for 13 May 2009 event "Acoustic Theater". http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-MM5TH27. Retrieved 12 October 2009.
In 2007, Gallant produced and directed Five Story Walkup, a four-week benefit for the 13th Street Repertory Theatre; the show included premier stagings of short plays and monologues by Neil LaBute, John Guare, Quincy Long, Clay McLeod Chapman, Laura Shaine Cunningham and Daniel F. Levin.,Hernandez, Ernio "Five Story Walkup – With LaBute, Guare Works – Starts 13th Street Rep Benefit Run 21 March". Playbill.com. 21 March 2007. http://www.playbill.com/news/article/106711.html. Retrieved 8 October 2009. The monologues and plays that constitute "Five Story Walkup" were published in the anthology THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS 2007–2008 by Applause Books in August 2009. In 2010, Gallant produced Seven Card Draw, a benefit for Dixon Place; this show featured premier stagings of short dramatic works by LaBute, Guare and the other authors who had contributed to Five Story Walkup, as well as a performance by Piper Perabo. The monologues and plays that constitute "Seven Card Draw" were published in the anthology THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS 2009–2010 by Applause Books in August 2011.BWW News Desk "The Best American Short Plays 2009-2010 Released 8/23". 24 June 2011. http://books.broadwayworld.com/article/The-Best-American-Short-Plays-2009-2010-Released-823-20110624 . Retrieved 10 July 2011. In 2014, Gallant produced "Nine Signs of the Times", a benefit for the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; this show featured premier stagings of short works by LaBute, Guare, Caridad Svich, Halley Feiffer, and the other authors who had contributed to "Five Story Walkup" and "Seven Card Draw". The dramatic works featured in "Nine Signs of the Times" were subsequently published in the anthology THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS 2013–2014 by Applause Books in June 2015.
Between 2007 and 2008, Gallant produced several off-Broadway plays and musicals at the DR2 Theatre in Union Square, including the off-Broadway premiere of David Brandes' and Joseph Telushkin's play The Quarrel (based on their 1991 film of the same name) and the musical Ogden Nash's The Tales of Custard the Dragon (by Bradford W. Ross and Danny Whitman).
Gallant also co-produced the long-running rock musicals Soul Searching and Generations, and he curated and hosted the multi-venue performance/reading series Acoustic Theater.
At the Nuyorican Poets Cafe In spring of 2008, Gallant was appointed as the new executive director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a renowned multi-arts venue located in Manhattan's east village.Schwarzfeld, Matt "The City's Latest Hirings and Retirings", City Limits Weekly, 12 May 2008. . Retrieved 8 October 2009. Gallant joined the Cafe just before its 35th Anniversary Celebration, a concert event at Manhattan's Town Hall.Reznik, Svieta "The Nuyorican celebrates poets aloud", The Villager, 30 April 2008. http://www.thevillager.com/villager_261/thenuyorican.html. Retrieved 8 October 2009.Richardson, Clem "Nuyorican cafe to celebrate with big bash at Town Hall", New York Daily News, 21 April 2008. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/04/21/2008-04-21_nuyorican_cafe_to_celebrate_with_big_bas.html. Retrieved 8 October 2009.
Since Gallant's appointment, the Cafe's operating budget has more than doubled, as has event attendance. Gallant's management efforts have focused on modernizing and expanding the operations of the Cafe while maintaining its artistic and cultural traditions.
Under Gallant's leadership, the Cafe has raised more than $10 million in capital funding; the funds will be used to renovate the Cafe's East Village building.
Gallant has also significantly expanded the Cafe's online presence. According to The Wall Street Journal, "since late 2009, Mr. Gallant has exploited expanding social-media tools to grow the cafe from a small, volunteer-led venue best known for weekly poetry events to a thriving arts center with partnerships across the city. Through strategic use of Facebook, Twitter and a $10,000-per-month grant from Google, he said he has boosted online ticket sales by 30% and web traffic by 40%, and doubled the number of events from around one per evening to two or more".
Lecturing and consulting Gallant lectures and consults in the fields of institutional marketing, social media and arts technology. He has delivered lectures and speeches about these topics for corporate, non-profit and educational organizations including the Kennedy Center, BAM, Opera America, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Google, Chase, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Foursquare, the Devos Institute, Columbia University, NYU, Fourth Arts Block and other entities. "Questions For Daniel Gallant & Nuyorican Poets Cafe: Internet & Social Media", Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, 1 May 2014. http://lmcc.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SocialMedia-Q_A_Daniel_Gallant.pdf. Retrieved 24 February 2016.Eisenhower Fellowships biography page for Daniel Gallant. https://www.efworld.org/meet-our-fellows/dan-gallant . Retrieved 20 February 2016.Nhan, Doris "Online outreach helps a cafe make new fans and keep the old", Smartblog, 1 July 2011. http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/07/01/how-a-small-business-used-social-media-to-spread-the-word/ . Retrieved 10 July 2011.
In 2022, he received a Fulbright Specialist Fellowship to lecture and consult about digital media strategies for academic and creative projects in Leiria, Portugal.
In popular media
Gallant is regularly quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and other periodicals. His quotes usually appear in articles about the contemporary poetry scene,Morgan, Richard "Poetry Gets Some Poetic Justice", The Wall Street Journal, 28 August 2013. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323324904579041393773183 58. Retrieved 21 February 2016. the changing nature of New York City's East Village, popular poets and social media. He has also written opinion pieces and reviews for The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Time Out New York and other media outlets.Gallant, Daniel. "Mayhem Film Review", Time Out New York, 9 November 2017. https://www.timeout.com/us/film/mayhem-2017 . Retrieved 8 February 2018.
Among the notable articles that feature his quotes are a 2018 New York Times article about the Cafe's history, a 2016 Wall Street Journal article about the Cafe's expansion and two 2015 New York Times articles, one about the cultural resurgence of snapping as a form of audience appreciation and another about spoken word programs that engage people who are serving time. In both a 2017 Wall Street Journal article and a 2017 feature from NPR, Gallant discusses the political nature of many performances at the Cafe. In a 2017 New York Times article about housing and rent issues in New York City, Gallant explains how short-term housing arrangements helped facilitate the early stages of his arts career. In New York'''s 2016 list of "Reasons to Love New York", Gallant is quoted as follows, about the Cafe's use of grant funds to expand cultural offerings: "Success is often described as turning art into numbers, but the reverse of turning numbers into art is its own craft".
Gallant has appeared on several TV shows. In 2013, he was featured in an episode of MTV's reality series "Washington Heights". Retrieved 29 April 2013. He appeared in an NBC news segment about Alphabet City in 2012. Retrieved 29 April 2013. He has appeared on NY1 multiple times, most notably in interviews broadcast in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2016. Retrieved 25 February 2016. Retrieved 25 February 2016. Gallant also appeared on the public affairs TV show Chasing News in 2016.
In September 2013, Gallant was interviewed on Univision's Sal y Pimienta show, during a segment about education and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. In June 2017, Gallant was interviewed about the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on CNN's series United Shades of America, during an episode that focused on Puerto Rico. In 2018, PBS NewsHour featured Gallant in an article about poetry and identity.
In April 2013, the New York Post published an editorial by Gallant; the editorial explored economic trends that threaten New York City arts venues. In June 2017, the Huffington Post published an article by Gallant that examines how cultural organizations in Spain and Japan use arts activity to increase community engagement. This article was subsequently reprinted in the Social Innovations Journal.
In 2017, Forbes featured Gallant in two articles, one of which highlighted his use of social media marketing techniques to expand the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and the other of which explored the topic of social media regulation.