Bookpleasures.com is excited to welcome as our guest Billy Van Zandt. Billy is the co-author and star of the Off-Broadway plays You've Got Hate Mail, Silent Laughter, Drop Dead!, and 21 other theatrical plays written with Jane Milmore, including A Night at the Nutcracker, Wrong Window, and summer stock perennial Love, Sex, and the I.R.S.

He also wrote The Property Known as Garland starring Adrienne Barbeau that broke house records at Off-Broadway’s Actors Playhouse.

He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his television special I Love Lucy: The Very First Show, and won People's Choice and NAACP Image Awards for his work on the Martin Lawrence comedy Martin and a Prism Multi-Cultural.

Billy and writing partner, the late Jane Milmore, are two of the most often-produced playwrights in the world. “These two people are a riot!” New York Times.

Along with Jane, he created and/or developed television's The Wayans Bros for Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans; Suddenly Susan for Brooke Shields; Bless This House; for Andrew Dice Clay, and Daddy Dearest; for Don Rickles and Richard Lewis; Newhart, Martin, which won them a People’s Choice Award and two NAACP Image Awards; Anything But Love with Jamie Lee Curtis; Bless This House with Andrew Dice Clay and Cathy Moriarty; Center of the Universe with John Goodman and Jean Smart; and I Love Lucy: The Very First Show, which won them an Emmy nomination.

Their plays have been produced in thousands of theaters worldwide, including two productions directed by Oscar-winner Olympia Dukakis (“Billy and Jane are funny, outrageous, off the charts writer/performers!”), and one by film legend Burt Reynolds.

On television, he was a regular cast member on the second season of ABC's Anything but Love. He was writer and guest star in the 1990 Valerie Bertinelli series Sydney.

He toured in the Off-Broadway hit You've Got Hate Mail which ran at the Triad Theater from 2010-2015.  And The Boomer Boys Musical, which he toured from 2016 until the world shut down in March of 2020.

On the big screen, Billy made his movie acting debut in Jaws 2, and appeared in Taps with Tom Cruise and Sean Penn; Star Trek: the Motion Picture; and A Wake in Providence written by Billy and Jane, which won the Audience Award at both the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and the Boston Film Festival.

He recently published GET IN THE CAR, JANE!: Adventures in the TV Wasteland

Norm: Good day, Billy, and thanks for participating in our interview.

Billy:  Hi, Norm!

Norm:  What do you consider to be your greatest success (or successes) so far in your various careers? 

(Photo credit: Danny Sanchez)

Billy:  My greatest success is the fact that I still love every second of what I do after doing it for one hundred and twenty years or whatever it’s been.   But, honestly, I don’t think in terms of success, I just like hearing the laughter at my shows.  I do take pride in knowing I can travel to countries all around the world and see our plays in other languages.  It tells me our writing is more universal than I ever would have imagined.   

And working with Lucille Ball wasn’t so bad either.

Norm: What has been your greatest challenge (professionally) that you’ve overcome in getting to where you’re at today?  

Billy:  Biting my tongue.  Frankly, of the two of us, Jane was the one who dealt with the networks and studios the most in our television work.  I’m happy taking notes from the audience - gauging their reactions and adjusting things in our work, but not so much from some 23 year old executive fresh out of business school who has never performed or written a day of comedy in his or her life.  So I’ve spent years biting my tongue and nodding a lot, and then doing things the way we wanted in the first place.

Norm: How many times in your career have you experienced rejection? How did they shape you?

Billy:  As an actor, I experienced rejection plenty of times.  And I take it personally every time.  Never grew out of that.   But what came out of that was writing my own shows so I had something to act in.  Turned out pretty well.

As a writer, however, it doesn’t bother me if someone doesn’t like my work.  That’s their problem.  On to the next thing!

What’s shaped me the most is being terrified of something new we’re about to embark on.  That’s when I know it’s the right move.

Norm: Who are your comedic influences, and what led you to your leanings toward comedy?

Billy:  Lucy, Lucy, and Lucy.  Buster Keaton.  Woody Allen.  Jerry Lewis (yes, Jerry Lewis).  Neil Simon.  Jackie Gleason.   Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna.  Laurel and Hardy.  Carl Reiner.  And Lucy’s writers Bob Carroll Jr, Madelyn Davis, Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf.

As a kid, I always was making people laugh.  And once I discovered I Love Lucy I saw the kind of comedy I wanted to do.  Broad BUT BELIEVABLE slapstick.  I learned timing from Lucille Ball and her three brilliant co-stars.  And I learned how to structure a script from imitating her writers.  I shamelessly imitated everyone on the show (in front and behind the cameras) when I started out doing my plays.

Norm: What do you think most characterizes your play-writing?

Billy:  Broad farce with modern day themes.  Lots of sight gags and high energy finales.   Our early shows are all flat out broad farces.  At some point there would be a chase scene, there would be someone who winds up in drag, and someone who would wind up in boxer shorts.  We eventually grew out of that after about six or seven or those type of shows and started branching out in all different directions.

Norm; Is there a play or sitcom that you wished you had written?

Billy:  So many.  There are some I’d like to rewrite, too.   I do wish I’d written on Modern Family, Frasier, Veep, Schitt’s Creek, Seinfeld, and Green Acres (although we sort of did the latter on Newhart), …and I wish I could have written a Lucy episode.

Norm: Have you ever been told something about your plays that surprised you?

Billy:  I’m constantly amazed how many actors I run into have done one or three or more of our shows.  It’s always a surprise to me that anyone knows them at all outside of our New Jersey fan base.

Also, I ran into a guy at my sons’ soccer game once who found out that I developed the Wayans Bros. TV show and told me how that show got him through his two year recovery after a horrendous car accident.  That took my breath away.  You think you’re just doing a sit-com, and then you hear something that.  You affect people more than you realize.  Made me very happy.

Norm: In your opinion, what is the most difficult part of the play-writing writing process ?

Billy:  Getting the initial idea.  Once I sit down to write, it’s just fun. 

I also don’t believe in writer’s block.  I always tell new writers, the easiest thing to do is rewrite.  So just get something on the page quickly, even if it’s terrible.

Norm; What did you find most useful in learning to write? What was least useful or most destructive?

Billy: Most useful - learning to write for myself.  Learning the only people I have to please is the audience.  It took me a few shows to learn that the audience is always right, no matter how perfect you think a laugh line is.  If it’s not working, it’s not them, it’s you!  

Least useful - too many writers in a TV writer’s room.  A small staff of brilliant people is best.  Nothing you write at 3:00 in the morning in worth putting into a script.

Norm: What would you like to say to writers who are reading this interview and wondering if they can keep creating, if they are good enough, if their voices and visions matter enough to share?  

Billy:  They should know “no one in this business knows anything.”  Write what you like.  

Norm: Do you feel that writers, regardless of genre owe something to readers, if not, why not, if so, why and what would that be?

Billy:  Writers create their own world, whether it’s in books, TV, movies, or plays.  I think all you owe the reader is honesty.   Honesty to the characters.  Honesty to the story.   

And I don’t go in for this new thing of successful writers lending their names as co-authors on other people’s books.  I stopped reading a few people out of spite because of that.

Norm: Could you tell our readers something about your latest book, GET IN THE CAR, JANE!: Adventures in the TV Wasteland?

Billy:  This is a collection of funny behind-the-scenes stories of my time writing and producing TV sit-coms.  The successes, the failures, the egos, the ecstasy and the agony of just trying to do my job.  Based on journals I kept on all my TV shows.  As we say, it’s part textbook, part gossip, all truth.

Norm: What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?

Billy:  I’m quite happy with what I did.  I meant it as a fun beach read.  Funny stories.  Each chapter is a different TV show, starting with Lucille Ball, then Bob Newhart, etc.  

In addition to the funny stories, I tried to explain what the job of a TV writer is - a little bit in each chapter - so by the time the book ends, you get a good sense of what it’s like to be a show runner on a show.  And why most of us are exhausted.

Norm: What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for readers who finish your book?

Billy:  I hope they’ll want a sequel.  I had a ball writing it.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and your writings?

Billy:  MY WEBSITE   You can see all about the TV shows, the plays, the movies, and in-person appearances (if that’s still a thing, after the pandemic ends).

Norm: What upcoming projects are you excited about? 

Billy:  Before the world shut down, we were touring the country in our usical-comedy review The Boomer Boys Musical.

A rat-pack sort of cabaret - four guys in their sixties making fun of the changes men go through at this age.  The women’s groups love it.  The men are happy to learn they’re not alone.  Young people are equal parts laughing their heads off and horrified.  And, I have to say, the songs Jane and I wrote with composer Wayland Pickard are pretty damn funny.  Hopefully when the world returns to whatever it’s returning to, we’ll be back on the road again.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors!

Billy:  Thanks, Norm!