As Artistic Director of Manhattan Ensemble Theate ("MET"), Dave Fishelson was the lead producer of Golda's Balcony, the longest-running one-woman show in Broadway history (2003-5, Tony® nomination), as well as the producer of that show's North American Tour (winner, "Best Play", 2005-6 Touring Broadway Awards). In 2019, he MET produced and edited (under the MET banner) a film version of the play called Golda's Balcony, The Film (2019), which went on to become an Official Selection at over 60 film festivals on five continents in the 2019-2020 season—including 15 Opening Nights and 10 Closing Nights in cities including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Phoenix, Honolulu, Charlotte, Palm Beach, Santa Fe, and many cities in Canada. The film also won the "Audience Favorite Award" at every festival it was in that had such an award in '19-'20.

Since founding the nonprofit MET Off-Broadway in 2001, Dave has held dual titles ("Founding Artistic Director" and "Producer") there. Born on July 24, 1956, Dave attended both the University of Wisconsin (BA 1978) and the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle (1978-9) where he studied film theory and history. He moved to New York City (in 1979), and 15 years later, Dave founded MET as a "writers' theatre, created to develop and produce new works of theater 'mined' from the rich ore of such diverse narrative sources as fiction, journalism, film, biography and memoir." MET Productions have included the Lortel Award-winning 9 Parts of Desire (about the women of Iraq), which ran for nine sold-out months, before moving on to acclaimed productions at Berkeley Rep, Seattle Rep, the Geffen in L.A., and Arena Stage in D.C. (from 2005-2008). In addition to the Lortel and numerous Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations, 9 Parts was a runner-up for the 2005 Susan Smith Blackburn prize, and was on the short list for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Between 2002-2005, Dave produced two plays at MET that enjoyed critical and commercial success Off-Broadway. The aforementioned Golda's Balcony (2003-6) earned a "Best Play" nomination from the Drama League, before moving to the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway in October 2003, where it ran for 15 months through January 2005. Hank Williams: Lost Highway (2002-3) earned an OBIE Award, as well as nominations from the Outer Critics Circle ("Best Off-Broadway Musical", "Best Actor in a Musical", "Best Director of a Musical"), the Lucille Lortel Awards ("Best Musical", "Best Actor in a Musical") and the Drama Desk ("Best Actor in a Musical"), as well as citations from The New York Times and The New York Sun as one of 2002-3's best Off-Broadway productions, before moving commercially to be the inaugural production at the Little Shubert Theater on 42nd Street.

In its first full season in 2001-2002, MET produced three plays that won critical acclaim: Death in Venice (cited by Time Out as one of the "Ten Best Plays of the Year"), The Castle (which earned a Drama League nomination for "Best Play", as well as Outer Critics Circle nominations for "Best Off-Broadway Play" and "Best Director") and The Golem (Outer Critics Circle nomination for "Best Featured Actor"). Both The Castle and The Golem (co-authored by Dave) were published by Dramatists Play Service in 2003.

Before founding MET, Dave was the managing director of the Off-Broadway theatre company "Jean Cocteau Repertory" from 1989-1992, its associate artistic director from 1992-1994, and a resident director there from 1994-1997, where he wrote and directed two dramatizations of Dostoyevsky's novels: The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. Both were published by Dramatists Play Service in 1995, and broadcast as radio plays on "National Public Radio Playhouse." For the screen he co-wrote and directed (with filmmaker Zoe Zinman) the award-winning independent feature City News, which was broadcast on PBS's "American Playhouse" in 1984. Shot without stars on a tiny budget, City News found immediate success by being the official selection of 12 international film festivals between 1983-4, including those of Atlanta, Edinburgh, Houston, Munich, Florence (Italy), Athens (Ohio), Santa Fe, Seattle, Vancouver, the USA Film Festival Dallas, the 6th Goteborg (Sweden) Film Festival and the 14th International Film Festival Antwerp (1984).  

In 2009, Dave sold the SoHo-based, 140-seat theater he designed — also known as "Manhattan Ensemble Theater" — to the award-winning theater company "The Culture Project" (The Exonerated, Bridge and Tunnel, Guantanamo) in order to develop and produce new works for the stage and screen. Among Dave's current projects-in-development for future MET seasons are a drama set during the fall of the Berlin Wall, an adaptation of a well-known French New Wave film for the stage, and an original play about the Holocaust called The Hamlet Syndrome. Dave is a full member of the Dramatists Guild, as well as a Tony®-voting member of the Broadway League. He lives in Manhattan with his wife Erana, and has two adult children. Read about him on WIKIPEDIA HERE.