Author Profile:  Flip Kobler

Flip Kobler began his performing career as an actor before morphing into a writer.  With his wife and writing partner, Cindy Marcus, they have been penning away ever since selling their first screenplay to Paramount Studios in 1988.  Together they have over 30 published plays, 27 of those with Pioneer Drama.  Their plays and musicals are performed worldwide.

Teaming with composing partner Dennis Poore, the trio formed Showdown Stage Company that specializes in teen theater.  They run summer camps all across the country, from Florida to Missouri to Los Angeles.  Most of these teen theater camps get to premiere a brand new show, which gives young actors a chance to put their own unique stamp on a character and help craft the final draft before publication.  They continue to change young lives by running on-going classes and workshops out of Spotlight Arts Center in Valencia, California.

Flip and Cindy spent five years on staff at Disney where they wrote many animated films, including The Lion King II, Beauty and the Beast The Enchanted Christmas, Hunchback of Notre Dame II, Pocahontas II:  Journey To A New World, Lady and the Tramp II:  Scamp’s Adventure and many, many others.  In 2010, Flip and Cindy celebrated the release of their live action family film, Jack and the Beanstalk, starring James Earl Jones, Christopher Lloyd, Katey Sagal, Wallace Shawn and Chevy Chase.  The duo also sold an original screenplay to Universal Studios and their Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode, “Profit and Loss,” first aired in March 1994.

Flip is the co-author, with John Lewis and Laura Andrews, of the theatrical textbook The Complete Guide to Church Play Production.