Mark Saltzman began his career in New York with Jim Henson, writing for the Muppets. His Sesame Street sketches and songs (including “Caribbean Amphibian”) earned him seven Emmy Awards, but behind Kermit’s back, Mark was writing cabaret shows and musicals that played at Soho Rep, 13th Street Theater, and the Village Gate, where he co-wrote the long-running revue A, My Name is Alice.
For network television, Mark collaborated with Jerry Herman on the CBS tv movie Mrs. Santa Claus, starring Angela Lansbury. For the movies, he wrote The Adventures of Milo and Otis, Three Ninjas Kick Back and has had screenplays commissioned by SONY, Universal, and Disney. His TV movie The Red Sneakers, directed by and starring Gregory Hines was nominated for a Writers Guild Award.
Mark’s musical play The Tin Pan Alley Rag opened at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1997 and was nominated for five Los Angeles Ovation Awards, including Best Musical. It played in theaters throughout the US, including Goodspeed and The Cleveland Playhouse, and had a successful run at New York’s Roundabout Theater where it was nominated as Best Musical by the Outer Critics Circle.
Mark’s musical Falling for Make Believe, based on the life of Lorenz Hart, opened in April 2013 at the Colony Theater in California. His comedy Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood played at Laguna Playhouse and Chicago’s Greenhouse Theater and was optioned for a movie by The Little Film Company. His stage musical, Romeo and Bernadette received two Drama Desk Award nominations in 2020 as well as winning awards from the Outer Critics Circle. The show will re-open off-Broadway in 2022.
Mark is a graduate of Cornell University’s English and theater departments.
He is president of the Arnold Glassman Fund, a charitable foundation that provides grants for worthy documentaries, mostly about film history and gay issues.
