Does the name Matt Reigle ring a bell? If you follow this publication, you know Matt as a member of the LebTown family of writers. He was, in fact, our first news writer.
Lately, Reigle has been busy following his first love, comedy writing, with freelance work for sports, culture, and comedy websites.
After graduating from Annville-Cleona High School, Reigle attended the University of Central Florida where he studied Radio-TV and CreativeWriting.
“Back in college I did a lot of comedy writing, mostly sketch comedy, and realized it was something I wanted to pursue,” Reigle said in an email to LebTown.
The contest Reigle won was in the pages of a popular British comedy magazine, PublicHouse. The editors of PublicHouse are big fans of the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm and thought it would be fun to have readers write a script for the show that deals with the current world situation. They called it the “Curb Your Enthusiasm Corona Writing Contest.”
“I heard about his contest online and thought it would be fun to give it a shot,” Reigle told LebTown. “I’m a fan of the show. I wrote a draft then messed with the beats of the story and punched up the jokes a little bit. When I felt I had something halfway decent, I had a couple people read it and revised it again before sending it in.”
Titled “Social Distancing,” Reigle’s script was selected the winner by a reader vote.
Curb Your Enthusiasm (CYE) is an HBO comedy program, now in its 10th year on the air. It stars Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. On the show, David essentially plays himself: a semi-retired TV writer forced to deal with all kinds of little, everyday problems and his family and friends who cause them.
Over the years, CYE has received countless nomination for Primetime Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards and has won a few along the way. Ironically, the production of the show does not use a script. It’s more like an outline with the dialog mostly improvised by the actors. If you’re familiar with the program and read Reigle’s script, you can easily visualize what it might look like on the screen.
PublicHouse and the contest are in no way affiliated with Curb Your Enthusiasm or HBO, so Reigle’s winning script will not be used in any production. It will be published in the magazine’s next edition and you can read it here.
Normally a premium channel, HBO has been offered free this month to home-bound viewers because of the pandemic. Older episodes are also in syndication.
Congratulations Matt, and best of luck with your comedy career. We could all use a good laugh right now.
Read all of LebTown’s COVID-19 coverage here.
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