Allan Albert

Allan Praigrod Albert was born in New York City and raised in Miami Beach. He graduated from Amherst College, where he staged "The Fantastics," with Ken Howard and Larry Dilg in leading roles, and "Murder in the Cathedral," starring Stephen Collins, in the village's Grace Episcopal Church. He also played the role of Marat in a staging of "Marat/Sade." He attended the Yale School of Drama and founded the Proposition, an improvisation troupe that played in Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York for a decade, launching the careers of Jane Curtin, Josh Mostel, Suzanne Rand and John Monteith (Monteith and Rand), and others. From 1977 to 1979, he was artistic director of the Berkshire Theater Festival and the Charles River Playhouse. He also did stints as director of comedy development at the infant HBO (from 1979 to 1981) and WNET in New York. At HBO, he was in charge of the "Young Comedians Shows," which featured such performers as Pee-wee Herman and Arsenio Hall. In 1980, he started Allan