Scott Meltzer
Biography

Scott Meltzer (known as Scotty to his friend) is the head writer and a principle performer for Comedy Industries. Scott has degrees in computer science and applied mathematics from U. C. Berkeley where he graduated with honors. An ex-IBMer and a Watson Scholar, Scott chooses to spend his time writing comedy and juggling knives on a six-foot unicycle while escaping from more straitjackets than any other computer programmer in the world.

He even appeared on ESPN as the expert commentator for their coverage of The World Juggling Federation 2012 competitions.

In addition to his performing skills, Scott writes a monthly column on comedy writing for variety artists, has taught comedy writing since 1991, and was a featured writer for the college textbook, Acting Comedy.

Scott has written commercials for radio, computer code for databases, interviews for professional wrestling, and over 500 scripts for trade shows, training sessions, and other corporate events. He even wrote a 90 minute film noir musical to train employees in best practices for selling toilet paper.

Scott started his performing career when he was 9 years old as The Wolf in a musical version of Little Red Riding Hood and has not left the stage since. Most of Scott’s childhood roles came not because of his acting or his singing, but because he was a boy who could dance and in children’s theater, girl dancers outnumber boy dancers by ten to one. Scott continued to sing, dance, and act with the San Jose Children’s Musical Theater throughout his puberty mainly because the girls outnumbered the boys by ten to one.

At 17, Scott learned to juggle and ride a unicycle in order to work his way through college. Performing with John Park, another Comedy Industries regular, as the American Dream Comedy Team, Scott and John did shows on the streets of San Francisco, at Pier 39, and on the campus at U.C. Berkeley where in between shows Scott earned his degrees.

Scott started working for IBM while still at college, but that didn’t last long. He knew his destiny was to be on the stage and not behind a computer monitor as soon as he realized that computers don’t applaud and in engineering, men outnumber women by ten to one.

After spending 11 years on the road together, John decided to settle down, get married, have kids, move to Toronto, and do anything else he could to get away from Scott’s endless notes. Meanwhile Scott continued to tour, now with Rich Ross as Monkey Wrench - The Comedy Explosion.

After crushing Rich’s spirit, Scott started the production company: Comedy Industries, employing both Rich and John along with a talented group of actors, jugglers, and magicians including Katrine Spang-Hanssen, Tim Kelly, Michael Goudeau, Ken Newman, Paul Nathan, Jay Alexander, and Sara Felder. In various combinations, both solo and duo, the Comedy Industries team writes and performs custom presentations for trade shows, sales meetings, training sessions, and other corporate events, proving over and over that people learn more when they laugh!

Finally, after 7 years writing and performing corporate presentations together, Scott and Katrine decided to make it official and became full time juggling partners in 2005 creating the comedy/juggling duo act they now do at theaters, festivals, comedy clubs, cruise ships, county fairs, private events, and anywhere else they can find a willing audience.

Scott is survived by his wife of 26 years, Kat Meltzer, and their two cats.