Alan Zweibel

Original Saturday Night Live Writer, Screenwriter & Best-Selling Author

About

Zweibel delivers a charming and candid look at his career journey as a comedy writer. He describes the experience of writing for some of television’s most beloved comedies—from Saturday Night Live to Curb Your Enthusiasm— and discusses how his career success has transcended television to film, theater, and literature.  In a separate program, Zweibel talks about tapping into the healing power of laughter, a cause he discovered in his very relatable story about helping his close friend and colleague, Gilda Radner, during her struggle after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, as well as his own coping after the loss of a loved one.An original Saturday Night Live writer, Alan has won multiple Emmy and Writers Guild awards for his work in television, which also includes It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (which he co-created and produced), The Late Show With David Letterman 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 – 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 Huffngton Post, Air Mail, and MAD Magazine. He has also penned a best selling e-book titled From My Bottom Drawer.

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

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

Alan is currently preparing Bunny Bunny for a return to the New York stage. His cultural memoir titled Laugh Lines - My Life Helping Funny People be Funnier was published by Abrams Books, and a movie he co-wrote with Billy Crystal called Here Today that stars Crystal and Tiffany Haddish can be seen on Amazon Prime and AppleTV+, 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.

Speech Titles

40 Years Trying to Make Funny People Funnier

Saturday Night Live, Live

Bunny Bunny

Laughing At Me

Back to the Big Time—Broadway!

Latest News + Press

Related Speakers

Writer, Actor, Comedian & Best-Selling Author

Comedian, Podcaster & Political Commentator

© 2026 United Talent Rights Reserved.

 VERSION NEXT-PUBLIC-VERSION-NUMBER