{{short description|American script writer}} {{about||the professor of biomedical engineering|W. Mark Saltzman}} {{Infobox person | name = <!-- use common name/article title --> | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = <!-- {{Birth date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} for living people supply only the year with {{Birth year and age|YYYY}} unless the exact date is already widely published, as per WP:DOB. For people who have died, use {{Birth date|YYYY|MM|DD}}. --> | birth_place = | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (DEATH date then BIRTH date) --> | death_place = | alma_mater = Cornell University | other_names = | occupation = Writer, playwright, lyricist | years_active = 1980s-present | known_for = | notable_works = }} '''Mark Saltzman''' is an American script writer who has written films, stage plays and musicals and for TV. He worked for several years for PBS's ''Sesame Street''.<ref name="Masters2001">{{cite book|last=Masters|first=Kim|title=The keys to the kingdom: the rise of Michael Eisner and the fall of everybody else : with a new epilogue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sji-T_HeMV8C&pg=PT329|access-date=12 August 2011|date=2001-07-31|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-662109-8|pages=329–}}</ref><ref name="Sibley2006">{{cite book|last=Sibley|first=Brian|title=Peter Jackson: a film-maker's journey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljcdAQAAIAAJ|access-date=12 August 2011|date=2006-11-30|page=194|publisher=HarperCollins Entertainment|isbn=978-0-00-717558-1}}</ref> He has been given seven Emmy Awards for Best Writing for a Children's Show.<ref name="D">{{Citation|year=2019|title=Mark Saltzman|publisher=msaltzman.com|url=http://www.msaltzman.com/sesame-street.html}}</ref>
==TV and film work== He graduated from Cornell University.<ref name="E"/>
Saltzman started his career writing cabaret shows and musicals that played at New York City venues<ref name="C"/> such as The Ballroom, Soho Rep, 13th Street Theater, and The Village Gate, where he co-wrote the long-running revue ''A, My Name is Alice''.
As a writer on the musical revue ''A, My Name Is Alice,'' he befriended the late cast member Alaina Reed, who had also been cast as Olivia on ''Sesame Street.''<ref name="C"/> Saltzman began working for ''Sesame Street'' in 1984, where he was a writer for 15 years.<ref name="C"/> He created the Muppet character of Plácido Flamingo for season 18, and wrote more than 50 songs,<ref name="B">{{Citation|year=2018|title=Sesame Workshop Denies Bert and Ernie's Gay Relationship Despite Former Writer's Claim|publisher=Newsweek|url=https://www.newsweek.com/sesame-street-bert-ernie-not-gay-couple-writer-mark-saltzman-1127006}}</ref> including the lyrics for "Caribbean Amphibian" and "I've Got a New Way to Walk."<ref name="D"/> He also created the character The Sublime Miss M, a take on Bette Midler.<ref name="A"/> He has seven Emmy Awards.<ref name="C"/>
For CBS, Saltzman wrote ''Mrs. Santa Claus'', a holiday musical movie starring Angela Lansbury with songs written by Broadway legend Jerry Herman.<ref name="E">{{Citation|year=2019|title=Bio|url=http://www.msaltzman.com/bio.html}}</ref> He also wrote ''The Adventures of Milo and Otis'' and ''Three Ninjas Kick Back''.<ref name="E"/>
His TV movie, ''The Red Sneakers'', which was directed by and starred Gregory Hines, aired on Showtime in 2004 and was nominated for a Writers Guild Award.<ref name="E"/> For cable TV's Here! network, Saltzman wrote the screenplay for ''Third Man Out'', based on the novel by Richard Stevenson.
In 2007, Mark served as writer-producer of the Emmy-nominated Disney Channel preschool show "Johnny and the Sprites," starring John Tartaglia.<ref name="F">{{Citation|year=2009|title=Saltzman's Comedy with Music, Set Up & Punch, to Premiere in Hollywood|publisher=Playbill|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/saltzmans-comedy-with-music-set-up-punch-to-premiere-in-hollywood-com-160108}}</ref>
Saltzman wrote ''The Adventures of Milo and Otis'', ''Napoleon'' and ''3 Ninjas Kick Back''. He has also written screenplays for Sony, Universal Studios, and Disney.
==Theater== Saltzman's musical play ''The Tin Pan Alley Rag'' tells the story of a fictional meeting in 1915 between Scott Joplin and a young Irving Berlin. ''Tin Pan'' opened at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1997 and was nominated for five Los Angeles Ovation Awards, including Best Musical.<ref name="E"/> Saltzman also wrote the book for the play.<ref name="F"/> The show continued on to many US theaters, including Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, and the Cleveland Play House. In the summer of 2009, it was produced in Off-Broadway by The Roundabout Theatre Company<ref name="E"/> in a production starring Michael Therriault and Michael Boatman in a production described by critics as "tunefully original" and containing "flashes of brilliance."
Saltzman's stage musical ''Romeo and Bernadette'' played at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami and New Jersey's State Theater, The Paper Mill Playhouse. His comedy ''Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood'', based on the true story of George Bernard Shaw's 1933 visit to MGM, premiered at the Laguna Playhouse in April 2003. His play, ''Clutter'', had its world premier at the Colony Theater in Burbank on February 7 of 2004. In 2002 he adapted the musical classic ''Show Boat'' for a Hollywood Bowl performance.<ref name="E"/>
In May 2009, Saltzman's play "Setup and Punch" premiered at The Blank Theatre in Los Angeles.<ref name="F"/>
His play ''Rocket City''[https://web.archive.org/web/20080608185009/http://www.southernwritersproject.net/SWP_Productions.html] had its world premiere in April 2008 as part of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's Southern Writers' Project, which has a mandate to encourage "plays that delve into Southern issues and the African American experience" and to contribute "nationally significant works to the American theater canon."[https://web.archive.org/web/20080527001638/http://www.southernwritersproject.net/Southern_Writers_Project.html] ''Rocket City'', or ''Rocket City, Alabam','' is based on the true story of Wernher von Braun and his recruitment by the US Government to work on the U.S. missile program and eventually the Saturn V, the rocket used in the Apollo program. Saltzman's play weaves von Braun's real-life in Huntsville, Alabama, with a fictional plot in which a young Jewish woman in Huntsville becomes aware of von Braun's Nazi past and tries to inspire awareness and outrage among Huntsville's long-established Jewish community, the town in general, and the country at large.<ref> {{cite web|url=http://www.skokietheater.org/rocket-city-alabam.html|title=MadKap Productions presents ''Rocket City, Alabam' ''|publisher=Skokie [Illinois] Theatre and MadKap Productions|year=2017|access-date=November 29, 2017}}</ref>
==Affiliations==
Saltzman has, for many years, been a mentor in the Blank Theatre Company's Young Playwrights’ Festival, held annually in Los Angeles. He is the president of the Arnold Glassman Fund, a charitable foundation that provides grants for film and theater projects.<ref name="E"/> He is also a graduate of Cornell University's English and Theater Departments.
==Personal life== Saltzman's partner,<ref name="A">{{Citation|year=2018|title= There's More to That Viral 'Sesame Street' Interview Than Bert and Ernie's Sexuality|publisher=Observer|url=https://observer.com/2018/09/sesame-street-lgbt-aids-bert-ernie-mark-saltzman/}}</ref> Arnold "Arnie" Glassman, was a film editor known for his work on ''The Celluloid Closet'' and ''Frailty''. After first meeting in October 1979, by 1986 they were living together as an out couple in New York. They were together for 20 years before Glassman died in 2003. According to Saltzman, when writing two ''Sesame Street'' characters Bert and Ernie, he wrote their interpersonal dynamic, playfulness and loving bond as a reflection of his own relationship with Glassman.<ref name="C"/>
Saltzman currently lives in Los Angeles.<ref name="C">{{Citation|year=2018|title=EXCLUSIVE: Are Bert & Ernie a couple? We finally have an answer…|publisher=Queerty|url=https://www.queerty.com/exclusive-bert-ernie-couple-finally-answer-20180916}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|0759166}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saltzman, Mark}} Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Writers from New York City Category:American children's writers Category:American male screenwriters Category:American television writers Category:Songwriters from New York (state) Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:Cornell University alumni Category:American male television writers Category:American male dramatists and playwrights Category:American LGBTQ screenwriters Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)