Mark Saltzman

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. He has been given seven Emmy Awards for Best Writing for a Children's Show.

TV and film work He graduated from Cornell University. including the lyrics for "Caribbean Amphibian" and "I've Got a New Way to Walk." He also wrote The Adventures of Milo and Otis and Three Ninjas Kick Back.

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.

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. 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.