The Berkshires Blog

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Situation: Comedy Press Release and Mark Treitel Bio...

FYI, everyone...

Link to press release

Mark Treitel's Bio

Mark gives new meaning to the word “multi-tasking” and can switch gears flawlessly. Besides being a comedy writer, he has among other things, prosecuted misdemeanors as a city attorney in the Los Angeles area, parlayed his Biology degree to become a member of the US Patent bar, as well as fastidiously collecting adverbs in his spare time.

Mark hails from a small town in Long Island; Port Jefferson, New York, where he merged his love of television and comedy by writing his first play in elementary school, “The Eighth Grade Sails The Love Boat.” At Tufts University, he was one of the original writers of Tuft’s comedy newspaper, The Zamboni, founded by Entertainment Weekly’s Josh Wolk. After unsuccessfully winning Homecoming King, Mark declared martial law and proclaimed himself Spring Fling King.

Next, he used his legal and comedy background at New York City’s Cardozo School of Law, co-writing the school’s Law Revue show with Jeff Marx, acclaimed co-creator of Broadway’s “Avenue Q.” He was also the co-editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, where he won one of the ABA’s awards for Best Law School newspaper. Since graduating, he’s used the powers of law to wipe out injustice and the occasional parking ticket.

Mark concluded to be a successful comedy writer, he had to relocate to Los Angeles. He knew it was only a matter of time until people recognized him for his talents. After being selected for the prestigious Warner Bros. Comedy Writers Workshop, and having one of his scripts performed at the HBO Comedy Workspace, he was rewarded with seeing numerous colleagues achieve great success. Nine years of broken dreams later – while never losing hope –he’s finally gotten his chance for success as a finalist on Bravo’s Situation: Comedy.

Mark lives with his beautiful, funny and one-of-a-kind wife, Mindy, who is also a transplant New Yorker. She and Mark’s family are ecstatic that Mark has been given this opportunity to finally fulfill all of his dreams, but she constantly reminds him he still has to do the laundry.

Mark Treitel and Shoe Schuster bio

Mark Treitel and Shoe Schuster ironically met at a UCLA sitcom pilot writing class. Their friendship developed into a solid writing team with a full folio of sitcom and feature projects. After grueling years of hard work, rewrites and the occasional pats-on-the-back, Mark and Shoe were ecstatic to be selected out of ten thousand submissions on Bravo’s “Situation: Comedy.” They were one of the finalists chosen by Sean Hayes (“Will & Grace”) and his producing partner, Todd Milliner. Mark & Shoe’s sitcom pilot, “The Sperm Donor” was hand picked by NBC’s Network Entertainment President, Kevin Reilly, to be one of the two pilot presentations to go into production in front of America’s eyes.

Mark and Shoe wrote “The Sperm Donor” as harkening back to the more family oriented sitcoms of their youths. They see the show as a quintessential “Odd Couple” with a male and female lead, and a strong family center. The duo worked hard to make sure that there were sustainable flesh and blood characters that could catapult their original premise into reality.

During the rushed six week production schedule, Mark and Shoe worked long hours to get their sitcom pilot off the ground. Under the tutelage of TV legends Mort Nathan (“Golden Girls”), Stan Zimmerman (“Gilmore Girls”) & Maxine Lapidus (“Roseanne”), they endured the arduous never-ending process of rewriting, casting, and production run-thrus and editing, nurturing their idea into a living, breathing sitcom pilot, shot before a live studio audience on the “Will & Grace” soundstage. Not only did they have a shortened shooting schedule as compared to most pilots, but Mark and Shoe faced the additional onus of constantly being filmed for the reality show. They worked through all the problems and finessed the script into a television show that fits right along NBC’s other quality programming. They know if the show would be given a chance to air on network television it would become a family favorite.

Mark and Shoe have recently optioned a script with Mike Epps (“The Honeymooners”, “All About The Benjamins”) attached and are currently developing a comedy feature with Zucker/Netter Productions (the home of such comedy classics as “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun”.) For more info visit http://www.marktreitel.com/ and http://www.shoeschuster.com/.

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