Today on the present we’ve got comedy legend, writer, and author Steve Kaplan. For years, Steve Kaplan has been the business’s most sought-after knowledgeable on comedy. In addition to having taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale and different high universities, Steve created the HBO Workspace, the HBO New Writers Program and was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre. He has consulted and taught workshops at corporations reminiscent of HBO, DreamWorks, Disney, Aardman Animation, Sony Pictures Network India, Globo Brazil, and others.
In New York, Steve was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, the place he developed writers reminiscent of Peter Tolan(Analyze This, The Larry Sanders Show), author and producer David Crane(Friends, Episodes), author/producer Tracy Poust (Ugly Betty, Will & Grace), Michael Patrick King(Sex and The City, Will & Grace), David Ives(Venus in Fur), Howard Korder (Boardwalk Empire), David Fury(The Tick, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer), Lisa Loomer (The Waiting Room), Tom Donaghy (The Mentalist), Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)and Mark O’Donnell (Hairspray) and launched such performers as Lewis Black, Mercedes Ruehl, Oliver Platt, Helen Slater, Fisher Stevens, Veanne Cox, Sam McMurray, Vickie Lewis, and Illeana Douglas.
In Los Angeles, he created the HBO New Writers Project, discovering HBO Pictures screenwriter Will Scheffer (Big Love), and performer/author Sandra Tsing Loh (Aliens in America),; and the HBO Workspace, a developmental workshop in Hollywood that launched and offered performers reminiscent of Jack Black and Tenacious D, Kathy Griffin, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross (Mr. Show), Josh Malina and Paul F. Tompkins. At the Workspace, he was Executive Producer for the award-winning HBO Original Programming documentary DROP DEAD GORGEOUS. Steve has directed in regional theaters and Off-Broadway (together with Sandra Tsing Loh’s ALIENS IN AMERICAat Second Stage).
In addition to non-public teaching and one-on-one consultations, Steve has taught his Comedy Intensive workshops to hundreds of scholars within the United States and international locations all over the world, together with London, Toronto, Galway, Athens, Paris, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Melbourne, Rio, Munich, New Zealand, and Singapore. This yr, he will probably be presenting seminars and workshops in Los Angeles, Brussels, London, and through Skype, Sweden.
His new ebook The Comic Hero’s Journey: Serious Story Structure for Fabulously Funny Films
A comic book hero or heroine additionally goes on a journey, however for the comedian hero, it’s typically fairly, fairly totally different. The hero decides to go on the journey; the comedian hero typically has no alternative. The hero has a smart outdated man; the comedian hero typically meets an fool who inadvertently says one thing that may educate him a factor or two. Steve Kaplan will present you the various paths that comedy takes in The Comic Hero’s Journey.
This interview is EPIC! If you need to learn to create “funny” in your screenplays or tasks this episode is for you.
