Comedy Writer, Producer, & Author Alan Zweibel | How to Write for Saturday Night Live

John Edmonds Kozma's Unimpressed Podcast

An original “Saturday Night Live” writer, Alan has won five Emmy Awards for his work in television, which also includes “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (which he co-created and produced) and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

A frequent guest on all of the late-night talk shows, Alan’s theatrical contributions include his collaboration with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award-winning play “700 Sundays,” Martin Short’s Broadway hit “Fame Becomes Me,” and six off-Broadway plays, including “Bunny Bunny Bunny Bunny: A Sort of a Love Story – Gilda Radner: A Sort of Romantic Comedy” which he adapted from his best-selling book.

All told, Alan has written eleven books including the 2006 Thurber Prize-winning novel “The Other Shulman,” the popular children’s book “Our Tree Named Steve,” and a parody of the Haggadah titled “For This We Left Egypt?” that he wrote with Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach.

Alan’s humor has also appeared in such diverse publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Op-Ed page, The Huffington Post and MAD Magazine. He has also penned a best-selling e-book titled “From My Bottom Drawer.”

Alan, the co-writer of the screenplays for the films “Dragnet,” “North,” and “The Story of Us,” received an honorary Ph.D. from the State University of New York. Because of the diversity of his body of work, in 2010, the Writers Guild of America, East gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award.

In addition to the talk shows, Alan also appeared in episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Law & Order,” and can be seen in the documentary “The Last Laugh” about humor and the Holocaust; Judd Apatow’s “Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling,” on HBO; “Gilbert” about the life of Gilbert Gottfried; and the Emmy nominated CNN documentary he executive produced titled “Love, Gilda.”

Taking to the stage himself, Alan is an ensemble performer at New York’s Triad Theater in Celebrity Autobiography — and is also a sought-after keynote speaker.

Alan is preparing “Bunny Bunny” to return to the New York stage. Most recently, his cultural memoir “Laugh Lines – My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier” was published by Abrams Books, and a feature film he co-wrote with Billy Crystal titled “Here Today” that stars Crystal and Tiffany Haddish can be seen on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, among other platforms.

But the production that Alan is most proud of is the one he co-created with his wife Robin, their three children, and five grandchildren.

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