Mark Saltzman is an American script writer who has written films, plays and musicals and for TV. He worked for several years for Sesame Street.[1][2] He has been given seven Emmy Awards for Best Writing for a Children's Show.[3]
As a writer on the musical revue A, My Name Is Alice, he befriended cast member Alaina Reed, who had also been cast as Olivia on Sesame Street.[5] Saltzman began working for Sesame Street in 1984, where he was a writer for 15 years.[5] He created the Muppet character of Plácido Flamingo for season 18, and wrote more than 50 songs,[6] including the lyrics for "Caribbean Amphibian" and "I've Got a New Way to Walk."[3] He also created the character The Sublime Miss M, a take on Bette Midler.[7] He has seven Emmy Awards.[5]
In May 2009 Saltzman's play "Setup and Punch" premiered at The Blank Theatre in Los Angeles.[8]
His play Rocket City[1] 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."[2]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.[9]
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.[4] He is also a graduate of Cornell University's English and Theater Departments.
Personal life
Saltzman‘s partner,[7] 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 the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie, he wrote their interpersonal dynamic, playfulness and loving bond as a reflection of his own relationship with Glassman.[5]