Matt Schatz

Matt Schatz, Author of THE BURDENS

Matt Schatz is a writer and composer. His plays and musicals include A Wicked Soul In Cherry Hill (Geffen Playhouse, Edgerton New Play Award), An Untitled New Play By Justin Timberlake (City Theatre/Pittsburgh CLO), The Door You Never Saw Before (Geffen Stayhouse), The Burdens (The O'Neill, City Theatre, Urbanite Theatre, and others), No One Sings Like You Anymore (Seattle Rep Commission), I Battled Lenny Ross (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Georama (St. Louis Rep, Great River Shakespeare Festival, NYMF), Where Ever It May Be (CLO Spark Festival), Dunkfest '88 (Ars Nova), Oh, Gastronomy! (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Love Trapezoid (Astoria Performing Arts Center) and The Tallest Building in the World (Luna Stage). Awards include The Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre, The ASCAP Foundation Harold Arlen Musical Theater Award, The Reva Shiner Comedy Award, the New York Musical Festival Outstanding Lyrics Award, and Broadway World Pittsburgh's Original Script of the Decade Award. Matt has received five Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Play Commissions; the most recent is an in-progress science musical with playwright Anna Ziegler. Matt has had television and film projects developed for Fox, USA, TBS, Warner Bros, CBS, EOne, and others and has been in writers' rooms for shows for AMC, Sony, Netflix, and others. Matt wrote the songs for Season 3 of Kevin Christopher Snipes' hit Spotify/Gimlet podcast series The Two Princes. He was a writer for Netflix Animation's upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation, for which he also co-wrote the pilot with Oscar-winner Taika Waititi. Matt has worked as a story consultant on projects for Waititi, Lynn Nottage, Netflix Features, and Lucasfilm. He's currently co-writing a pilot for AMC. Matt lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jenna Hymes and their two daughters.