Timothy Cooper is a filmmaker, playwright, and comedian based in Brooklyn, New York. After getting a B.A. in philosophy from Yale in 2002, he moved to New York and started writing plays.

Playwriting
Timothy’s first full-length play, the documentary drama Saviour, was a semifinalist in the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project and received readings at two Off-Broadway theaters. His one-act play The Beauty, the Sound, the Whisper was a finalist in the Actors Theatre of Louisville National Ten-Minute Play Contest. And his choose-your-own-adventure family musical, Scotch & Poison, ran for three weeks on the Frying Pan, a lighthouse ship docked in the Hudson River.

Improv
In 2005 he shifted from written theater to improvised theater. He has directed improv comedy shows (yes, improv can be directed and rehearsed) at theaters all over NYC, including Sunny-Side Up at Upright Citizens Brigade and Farebeater at the Peoples Improv Theater. He's performed with his improv comedy troupe, Gluttony, at the Del Close Marathon at Upright Citizens Brigade, the Toronto Improv Festival, and dozens of theaters throughout the Northeast. He's taught improv performance skills to students of all ages at schools, camps, and theater companies, including TADA! Children’s Theater, the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies, and the New York City Writing Project at Lehman College.

Screenwriting & Directing
Playwriting and improv flowed naturally into screenwriting. As an independent script consultant, he’s edited or doctored features and teleplays for dozens of clients, including the upcoming indie drama The Boarding House. His screenplay Between Two Worlds, co-written with Andre Degas, was an IFP Market Emerging Narrative Official Selection. His short screenplay Teddy won the NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness Screenwriting Competition award for Best Sci-Fi Screenplay, and his short film The Chocolateer has won several awards. "Transparency," his short political comedy video, was featured on the front pages of both YouTube Comedy and Slate magazine.

Timothy wrote and directed the original comedy web series Concierge, set behind the scenes at a down-on-its-luck hotel. The first three episodes, featuring cast members from Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, Last Comic Standing, I Love You, Man, the Onion News Network, and Upright Citizens Brigade, can be viewed at ConciergeTheSeries.com.

For his work on Concierge, he was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media. The series was also an official selection of the International Television Festival and the Screen Actors Guild Foundation Short Film Showcase.

He also wrote and directed the two-screen digital sitcom pilot We Are Criminal Masterminds, which was a top-five nationwide finalist in the Samsung Second-Screen Storytellers competition at the New York Television Festival. Check it out here.

He's written commercials for a wide range of companies, including this spot and these teasers to advertise YouTube during the 2014 Super Bowl.

Timothy's first produced feature film, Away From Here, starring Nick Stahl, Alicia Witt, Ray Wise, Julie Garfield, and Frankie Faison, is available on On Demand, YouTube, Amazon, and iTunes. You can see the trailer here.

Teaching
Timothy has given talks, seminars, and panels at the Writers Guild of America East, the Women in Film and Television International Summit, the Screenwriters World Conference East, and more. He regularly teaches classes at The Writers Store and the Brooklyn Brainery. He also writes articles on the craft of screenwriting for Script Magazine. Timothy tutors privately with his company, Blueprint Screenwriting Group, in New York City.

Managerial Skills
Finally, Timothy is the proud manager of the division-championship-winning Writers Guild of America East softball team.