Thursday, June 14, 2018
8pm

Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Mike Scully, David Silverman & Mike Reiss

celebrating 30 years of The Simpsons discussing Mike Reiss’ book,
Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons

Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404

PURCHASE TICKETS 
$45 General Admission Section Seat + Book
$50 Reserved Section Seat + Book
$20 General Admission Seat

In celebration of The Simpsons thirtieth anniversary, the show’s longest-serving writer and producer offers a humorous look at the writing and making of the legendary Fox series that has become one of the most revered artistic achievements in television history.

Best-known as the spiky-headed underachiever Bart Simpson, Emmy Award-winning voice actor Nancy Cartwright is also the unique voice behind 6 more of The Simpsons’ characters.  In her 38th year of the entertainment industry, Nancy’s work includes popular characters from Richie Rich, My Little Pony, Snorks, Pound Puppies, Animaniacs and Pinky and The Brain. Nancy also became a hit with the millennials as the voice of Chuckie in Rugrats and Rufus—the Naked Mole Rat—in Kim Possible.  

Yeardley Smith has been the voice of Lisa Simpson since the beginning of time, she is the co-host of the popular true crime podcast Small Town Dicks; and, yes, she’s that girl in that cult classic movie you love from the ‘80s.

 From 1987 to the present, David Silverman has been an animator, director, supervising director, producer, consulting producer, and even a writer on The Simpsons.  He directed The Simpsons Movie and the Oscar-nominated Simpsons short The Longest Daycare.

Emmy and WGA Award-winning writer/producer Mike Scully has been part of The Simpsons writing staff since 1993, and was showrunner for Seasons 9 through 12, considered by many to be the four most consecutive seasons of the series. He co-wrote and co-produced The Simpsons Movie, released in 2007, and has written for Parks and Recreation, Everybody Loves Raymond, and The Carmichael Show.

Mike Reiss (pictured top left in Matt Groening caricature) has won four Emmys and a Peabody Award during his twenty-eight years writing for The Simpsons.  He ran the show in Season 4, which Entertainment Weekly called “the greatest season of the greatest show in history.”  He is the co-creator of The Critic.  In addition, he’s written jokes for such comedy legends as Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers, Garry Shandling… and Pope Francis!  For his comedic contributions to the charitable group Joke with the Pope, in 2015 Pope Francis declared Reiss “A Missionary of Joy”.  

Mike Reiss—who has worked on The Simpsons continuously since episode one in 1989—shares stories, scandals, and gossip about working with America’s most iconic cartoon family ever. Reiss explains how the episodes are created, and provides an inside look at the show’s writers, animators, actors and celebrity guests. He answers a range of questions from Simpsons fans and die-hards, and reminisces about the making of perennially favorite episodes.

In his freewheeling, irreverent comic style, Reiss reflects on his lifetime inside The Simpsons—a personal highlights reel of his achievements, observations, and favorite stories. Springfield Confidential exposes why Matt Groening decided to make all of the characters yellow; dishes on what it’s like to be crammed in a room full of funny writers sixty hours a week; and tells what Reiss learned after traveling to seventy-one countries where The Simpsons is watched (ironic note: there’s no electricity in many of these places); and even reveals where Springfield is located! He features unique interviews with Judd Apatow, who also provided the foreword, and Conan O’Brien, as well as with Simpsons legends Al Jean, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and more.