Every screenplay needs an attention-grabbing beginning and a satisfying ending, but those elements are nothing withour a strong, well-crafted middle.
Michael Halperin escaped New Jersey and came west with his parents while battling his brother all the way to Los Angeles. His early success selling a short story to a magazine when he was fifteen put him on the road as a writer. Little did he know it wasn't always going to be that easy. Once out of college he became a documentary filmmaker and then entered the world of television. His scripts caught the eye of a TV producer and he became a Story Editor for Universal Television and then Executive Story Consultant at 20th Century-Fox. He wrote numerous episodes for long-running television series and created a popular animated series, "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe". His novels include the Young Adult book "Black Wheels", chosen by the National Education Assn. for its prestigious African American Booklist 2005 through 2010 and the best-selling award-winning novel for children "Jacob's Rescue: A Holocaust Story", Random House. Non-fiction: "Writing Great Characters", Lone Eagle; "Writing the Second Act", MWP; and "Writing the Killer Treatment", MWP. Halperin edited the anthology "Judaism: Embracing the Seeker", KTAV Publishing, 2010. Celebrity Staged Reading Series debuted Halperin's comedy "Freedom, Texas" JAC Publications, in October 2009 in Los Angeles. His one-character play, "Mela", was performed as a staged reading in Santa Monica, 2009 and in August 2004 in Jerusalem commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Yad Vashem. "The Spark of Reason" (Dorothy Silver Playwriting Finalist), JAC Publications, had a series of staged readings at the Promenade Playhouse, Santa Monica, California in 2008. "Dancing With William Blake" was chosen by the Eileen Heckert Playwriting Competition for inclusion in the Lawrence and Lee Archives of the Ohio State University Libraries. "All Steps Necessary", commissioned and produced by Inkwell Theater, premiered April 2006 in Los Angeles. "Freud at Sinai" and "Poor Timing", one-act plays, have been produced on both the east and west coasts. His newest play commission is "Hidden Wisdom", four one-act plays adapted from short stories. Halperin teaches writing, broadcasting and communications in the School of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. He has a BA Degree in Communications from the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications and a Ph.D. in Film Studies.
