Douglas Horn

With sharp, evocative dialog and striking visual flair, writer-director Douglas Horn’s work has quickly gained a following among film audiences. His debut feature, Entry Level starring DB Sweeney, Missi Pyle, and Kurtwood Smith was released by PorchLight Entertainment and sold into markets worldwide. His short film, Full Disclosure starring Judy Greer and Brent Sexton won over a dozen awards for Best Short Film and went on to become a #1-selling short film on Apple’s iTunes Store and has been included in over a half dozen short film compilation sets through Official Best of Fest and other distributors. Douglas’s family film Babysitters Beware with Danny Trejo, Dee Wallace-Stone, and Rico Rodriguez is in distribution from Phase 4 Films. He was also the original and primary screenwriter of the feature film, All I Want is Christmas featuring Elliott Gould and David DeLuise also distributed by Phase 4 Films.

Douglas Horn and Dan Southworth founded Popular Uprising, a media company that is redefining independent series by offering premium cable-type programming distributed over the Internet. Popular Uprising’s action/sci-fi series DIVERGENCE launched in August 2012 following a presentation at Comic-Con International.

Douglas has a background in developing and marketing consumer products for high profile properties. When not creating films and series, he consults on the development of games and other consumer products for AAA brands including Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, Marvel Avengers, Disney Princess, Disney’s Phineas and Ferb, Mattel’s Barbie, Dr. Seuss, Pokémon, and others. Douglas lives in the Seattle area with his wife and two children.

Join us welcoming Douglas to our November First Tuesday Panel

Steve Kaplan

For almost 15 years, Steve Kaplan has been the industry’s most sought-after expert on comedy. In addition to having taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale and other top universities, Steve Kaplan created the HBO Workspace, the HBO New Writers Program and was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre. He regularly serves as a consultant and script doctor to such companies as DreamworksDisneyHBOParamountTouchstone and others.

In New York, Steve was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, where he developed writers such asPeter Tolan (Analyze This, Finding Amanda), writer and producer David Crane (Friends, Joey, The Class), writer/producer Tracy Poust (Ugly Betty, Will & Grace), Michael Patrick King (The Comeback, Sex and The City, Will & Grace), David Ives (All In The Timing), Will Scheffer (Big Love), Howard Korder (LAKEVIEW TERRACE starring Samuel Jackson and Ashton Kutcher), Lisa LoomerTom DonaghySandra Tsing Loh (CHICKEN LITTLE), Kenneth Lonergan and Mark O’Donnell (HAIRSPRAY starring John Travolta) and introduced such performers as Lewis Black, Mercedes Ruehl, Oliver Platt, Helen Slater, Fisher Stevens, Veanne Cox, Sam McMurray, Vickie Lewis and Illeana Douglas.

In Los Angeles, he created the HBO New Writers Project, discovering HBO Pictures screenwriter Will Scheffer and performer/writer Sandra Tsing Loh; and the HBO Workspace, a developmental workshop in Hollywood that introduced and presented performers such as Jack Black and Tenacious D, Kathy Griffin, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross (Mr. Show), Josh Malina and Paul F. Tompkins. At the Workspace, he was Executive Producer for the award-winning HBO Original Programming documentary DROP DEAD GORGEOUS. Steve has directed in regional theaters and Off-Broadway (including Sandra Tsing Loh’s ALIENS IN AMERICA at Second Stage) and has developed, produced and directed other one-woman shows with actress Lauren Tom and comediennes Nora Dunn and Kathy Buckley.

Steve has been teaching his Comedy Intensive workshops to thousands of students for more than 10 years. He is currently presenting his two-day Comedy Intensive workshops around the world, with workshops scheduled in Los Angeles, New York, London and Singapore.  Learn More.

David S. Hogan

David S. Hogan has been working professionally since 2000. His work has been seen on many Seattle stages including Book-It Repertory Theater, Seattle Shakespeare Company, The Seattle Opera, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and more. In 2011, he shot Thunderballs, Shadowed, and All My Presidents. In 2012, he made his network television debut on NBC’s Grimm. Additionally in 2012, he shot two features, two short films, and his first web series pilot (written by David S. Hogan and Angela DiMarco) is in pre-production. David has been working as an acting coach and professional consultant since 2008.

He has studied with John Jacobsen (direct line to Uta Hagen), Tom Todoroff (direct line to Stella Adler), Jessica Marlowe Goldstein (direct line to Leonid Anisimov), Nike Imoru, and Steven Anderson, to name a few. He maintains a blog and two Facebook Groups dedicated to the craft of acting and the advancement of the northwest film and television actor.

In June of 2012, he and his wife, Angela DiMarco, founded Mighty Tripod Productions, a film production and educational outreach company.