Kick off this fall in the best possible way, by finally finishing your comedic plays, standup routines, sketches, solo shows and screenplays with the industry's top comedy expert Steve Kaplan (best-selling author of "The Hidden Tools of Comedy") - who returns to NYC after teaching his Comedy Intensive workshops around the world to thousands of students in London, Munich and Tel Aviv.
Steve Kaplan has been the industry's most sought-after expert on comedy, having taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale and other top universities. He created the HBO Workspace, the HBO New Writers Program and was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre. He has served as a consultant to such companies as Dreamworks, Disney, HBO, Aardman Animation, and more.
His best-selling Amazon.com book, The Hidden Tools of Comedy (from Michael Wiese Productions, publishers of the international bestsellers Save the Cat and The Writer's Journey) has been translated into Russian, French and Chinese. Steve's former students have been nominated for 48 Emmy Awards, 11 WGA Awards, 3 Golden Globes, 6 Academy Award, 10 SAG Awards, 6 American Comedy Awards and they've won 10 Emmys, 1 Oscar, 2 WGA Awards, the American Comedy Award and more. In New York, Steve was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, where he developed writers such as Peter Tolan (Analyze This, Finding Amanda), writer and producer David Crane (Friends, Joey, The Class), writer/producer Tracy Poust (Ugly Betty, Will & Grace), Michael Patrick King (The Comeback, Sex and The City, Will & Grace), David Ives (All In The Timing), Will Scheffer (Big Love), Steve Skrovan (Everybody Loves Raymond) Howard Korder (Lakeview Terrace), and Mark O'Donnell (Hairspray) and introduced such performers as Lewis Black, Nathan Lane, John Leguizamo, Mercedes Ruehl and Oliver Platt. In Los Angeles, he created the HBO New Writers Project, discovering HBO Pictures screenwriter Will Scheffer and performer/writer Sandra Tsing Loh; and the HBO Workspace, a developmental workshop in Hollywood that introduced and presented performers such as 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 (including Sandra Tsing Loh's ALIENS IN AMERICA at Second Stage.)Videos