Allison Silverman (born February 17, 1972)^[1] is an Americancomedywriter and producer, known for her television work onRussian Doll,Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, andLate Night with Conan O'Brien. She was the head writer andexecutive producer forThe Colbert Report until 2009.^[2] In 2011, she was an executive producer and writer ofPortlandia. She is co-creator of the comedy seriesSchmigadoon!, and was a writer for the television seriesAt Home with Amy Sedaris,The Office, andThe Daily Show.

Silverman graduated from Buchholz High School inGainesville, Florida in 1990 and fromYale University in 1994.^{[3][failed verification]}

Silverman has written forThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart andLate Night with Conan O'Brien. She has received severalEmmy nominations for her work on these three shows, including two wins for her work onThe Daily Show andThe Colbert Report.

Silverman attendedYale University in the early 1990s, where she was involved in one of the college'simprovisational comedy groups,The Ex!t Players.^[4] After graduating in 1994 with a degree in humanities, she made her way toChicago. She performed at Chicago'siO Theater (then known as ImprovOlympic), and later at theBoom Chicago theater inAmsterdam.^[5] In Chicago, Silverman got her start writing at a company calledJellyvision for atrivia game calledYou Don't Know Jack. While in Chicago, Silverman was hired as a writer for the television showWho Wants to Be a Millionaire, which prompted her to move to New York. Shortly thereafter, she was hired as a writer forThe Daily Show.^[6]

Silverman won an Emmy and aPeabody Award as a member ofThe Daily Show's writing staff before joiningLate Night in 2002. During this period, Silverman was notably the only female writer on staff for bothThe Daily Show andLate Night with Conan O'Brien.^[7] She moved toThe Colbert Report in 2005 shortly after it was picked up to series. Although most of Silverman's work on theReport was off-camera, she occasionally made appearances on the show, as an audience member, as the voice of the alien woman "Juliax" in aTek Jansen cartoon, and as "Your Soulmate" in the abridged audiobook ofI Am America (And So Can You!), which she co-wrote. Silverman's contributions toThe Colbert Report would win the show a Peabody Award, an Emmy Award, and multiple Emmy nominations.Stephen Colbert has said that she has "the mind of Jonathan Swift had he mated with the Cookie Monster."^[8]

She was a 2009 recipient of NYWIFT's Muse Award,^[9] celebrating the achievements of women who work in film and television. She leftThe Colbert Report in August 2009.^[10]

In 2011 Silverman was a writer for the comedy seriesPortlandia, and served as co-executive producer for the show's next season in 2012.^[1] In an interview,Carrie Brownstein reflected about the encouragement that she received from Silverman on the first season ofPortlandia:

"I try to sort of model what she did for me in my own life, which was just to listen, to understand that there is that fear when you first enter a room—a figurative or literal room—where you're kind of forced to speak in a different register. I really am so grateful for her generosity and kindness."^[11]

In March 2011, Silverman was a writer and contributor on the radio programThis American Life in an episode titled "Oh You Shouldn't Have".^[12]

Between the years of 2011–2013, Silverman was a writer onThe Office, before she began working as executive producer on the comedy seriesUnbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.^[1] She was a writer and producer on the show from 2015 to 2017.^[13] She was also a writer on theApple TV+ musical comedy seriesSchmigadoon! which starsCecily Strong.^[14]

Silverman was a writer and producer on both first and second seasonsRussian Doll series, which premiered in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Silverman was named a finalist for the 2019Ray Bradbury Award for Dramatic Presentation for her work on the episode "The Way Out",^[15] as well as receive an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for the episode "A Warm Body".

In 2022 it was reported that Silverman is working with writerGeorge Saunders on a pilot for the short story seriesCivilWarLand in Bad Decline,^[16] as well as an adaptation ofDavid Goodwillie'sKings County.^[17]

Silverman married Adrian Jones in 2009.^[18]

• Allison Silverman atIMDb
• A Week-Long Electronic Journal - A week-long diary kept by Silverman, then aDaily Show writer, forSlate in 2001.
• Silverman is interviewed on The Sound of Young America - September 29, 2006.

• 1972 births
• Living people
• American comedy writers
• American women television producers
• American television writers
• Exit Players alumni
• Buchholz High School alumni
• Writers from Gainesville, Florida
• American women comedians
• Primetime Emmy Award winners
• American women television writers
• Writers Guild of America Award winners
• Comedians from Florida
• Screenwriters from Florida
• 21st-century American comedians
• 21st-century American screenwriters
• 21st-century American women writers
• Television producers from Florida
• Yale University alumni

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