The Complete History of Comedy (abridged)

Reed Martin is best-known for his work as a Writer/Performer/Director/Producer with the Reduced Shakespeare Company with whom he has toured the world since 1989 and co-created eleven stage shows. He has performed in forty-seven states and eleven countries, including shows at The White House, Madison Square Garden, London's West End, The Lincoln Center, and The Kennedy Center. He has written for the BBC, TBS, National Public Radio, Britain's Channel Four, RTE Ireland, Public Radio International, The Washington Post and Vogue magazine. Reed's work has been nominated for an Olivier Award in London, a Helen Hayes Award in Washington, DC, and a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critic's Circle Award. Along with his RSC partner Austin Tichenor, Reed was awarded the 2025 Berger Award by the international Shakespeare Theatre Association in recognition of outstanding talent and dedication to the works of William Shakespeare. He lives in Northern California with his wife, who is much funnier than he is.

"A man of letters in the theatre" (Peter Marks, Washington Post), Austin Tichenor's "intellectual vaudevilles" (Stephen Holden, New York Times) have been produced Off-Broadway, in London’s West End, at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and in theaters across America and around the world, including American Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Seattle Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Atlanta Shakespeare Company, San Francisco's Marines Memorial Theater, Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, Bath Theater Royal, Gielgud Theatre, Criterion Theatre, Jerusalem Theatre, Montreal's Just For Laughs Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, to name a few. He's the co-artistic director of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, for whom he's co-written ten stage comedies (all published and licensed by Broadway Play Publishing), the short film The Ring Reduced (for UK's Channel 4), a 6-part BBC World Service radio series, two TV pilots and several unproduced others, and the illustrated children's book Pop-Up Shakespeare. An alum of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, Austin's also written over 25 plays and musicals for young audiences, two published adaptations (FRANKENSTEIN and DANCING ON THE CEILING), and stage versions of Jasper Fforde's novel The Eyre Affair and Christopher Moore's New York Times bestseller Fool; co-created the illustrated children's book Daisy The Littlest Zombie; worked in story development for Disney Feature Animation; and is a monthly contributor to the Folger Shakespeare Library's culture blog "Shakespeare & Beyond." Austin is also an actor, director, and the producer and host of the Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast, the world's longest-running (since 2006!) theater podcast. His script THE BIBLE: THE COMPLETE WORD OF GOD (abridged) received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best New Play, and you can find him on the socials or his website TheShakespeareance.com.