Wednesday, March 26, 2014

bareNaked LA (Mike Reiss)

Meet Mike Reiss, our playwright for the opening night of the bareNaked LA Reading Series.  For more info on reading series in LA check out: https://www.facebook.com/events/299579173523635/?ref=22


MIKE REISS
Mike Reiss has won four Emmys and a Peabody Award during his twenty-one years writing for “The Simpsons”.  He ran the show in Season 4, which Entertainment Weekly called “the greatest season of the greatest show in history.”  In 2006, Reiss received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Animation Writers Caucus. 

Reiss co-created the animated series “The Critic” and created Showtime’s hit cartoon “Queer Duck” (about a gay duck).  “Queer Duck” was named one of “The 100 Greatest Cartoons of All Time” by the BBC.  “Queer Duck: the Movie” was released to rave reviews in July 2006, winning awards in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Sweden, Germany and Wales.

 Reiss’s other TV credits include “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”, “ALF”, and “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”.  

“My Life in Ruins”, a film inspired by his travels to 71 countries, was released in 2009.  Reiss also co-wrote ‘The Simpsons Movie” and “Ice Age 3”, with a combined world-wide gross of $1.5 billion.

Reiss’ first play, “I’m Connecticut” set box-office records for Connecticut Repertory Theater.   The Hartford Courant called it “sweet and hysterically funny” and named it one of the year’s Ten Best Plays.   Broadway World Connecticut voted it Best Play of 2012.

            His caveman detective story “Cro-Magnon P.I.” won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.  He has published seventeen children’s books, including the best-seller “How Murray Saved Christmas” and the award-winning “Late for School”.  Reiss also composes puzzles for “NPR”, and “Games Magazine”.

            As a professional speaker, Reiss has lectured at over two hundred colleges and institutions, on six continents.   His topics include “The Simpsons”, comedy and Judaism, and the sorry state of television.   Reiss is a former president of “The Harvard Lampoon” and editor of “The National Lampoon”.
           
He has been happily married for twenty-five years.  Like most children’s book authors, he has no children.

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