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Mike Reiss brings in former Monkee Micky Dolenz to take the lead role in his latest play “Comedy Is Hard!”

Reiss, who headed the  writing team on “The Simpsons” has chosen Dolenz to star in his latest play, due to  open in late  September in his home state of Connecticut.

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Mike Reiss, whose first play, “I’m Connecticut” named Best Play of 2012 by Broadway World  is calling in the big guns for his follow up,  “Comedy Is Hard!, ” is scheduled to  premiere on the 24th September at the Ivoryton Playhouse in Ivoryton, Connecticut, recognized as being is one of the principal platforms for promising  productions on their way to Broadway for the following spring.

To help Comedy Is Hard!, ” get there, Reiss has chosen former child actor and  veteran pop star Micky Dolenz of The Monkees for the lead role in his latest production,   set in a home for retired actors.

Dolenz will play the part of a  ribald,  retired stand-up comedian who enters into a volatile  love/ hate relationship between a  highly strung former  classical actress, with  the female lead yet to be named.

In the likely event that Comedy Is Hard!, ” Dolenz will be no  strangers to the bright lights, having  previously appeared in theatrical versions of “Grease, ” “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum” and  most recently in “Hairspray” in the West End  of London among a number of other stage productions, as well as a long television and film career with the Monkees pop group in the sixties.

Dolenz, began his  show business career way back in 1956 at the age of eleven in a televised children’s show called “Circus Boy”.

Mike Reiss first sprang to prominence in the world of entertainment as a writer and producer on the first four seasons of the class  animated series “The Simpsons”,  later going on to create  another animated TV series “The Critic, ” as well as working film screenplays, among them  the 3-D computer animated comedy adventure film,   “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaur” released in 2009 as well as  The Simpsons Movie and My Life in Ruins.

In tribute to his tremendous versatility and  the depth of his talents Mike Reiss has also  published seventeen children’s books, including the best selling “ How Murray Saved Christmas”.

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Mike  Reiss  show business career got of the ground during his student days at Harvard University, where he formed a writing collaboration with fellow freshman Al Jean on the University publication,  Harvard Lampoon.

Following their success on the Harvard Lampoon, Jean and Reiss were soon snapped a a writing team by the famous  National Lampoon magazine, after their graduated in 1981.

Their time together at National Lampoon springboarded their success into the world of televison writing, and as the eighties continued,   Reiss and Jean were very much in demand as  writers and producers on such hit TV productions  as the cult space parody “ALF” , “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson”  as well as “It’s  the Garry Shandling Show.”

In 1989, Reiss and  Jean signed up to  form the backbone of  the original writing staff for  Fox’s new animated series The Simpsons, working on all of  the  thirteen episodes in the show’s debut season in 1989, remaining on the writing team for the second team, before moving up the ladder to become executive producers of The Simpsons for  the third season, with the duo leaving at the end of  season four to create The Critic, an animated TV  show based around the real life  film critic Jay Sherman.

Reiss  was awarded a total of four Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on the Simpsons.

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