Biography

Born on January 10, 1961, Evan Handler is an actor, author and screenwriter from New York City -- though he grew up outside of New York in Montrose, N.Y., graduating from Hendrick Hudson High School.  He has played leading roles in Ron Howard's film Ransom; Taps, Sweet Lorraine; Dear Mr. Wonderful; as well as featured roles in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers and The Chosen.  In addition to two previous network television half-hour comedies (Sibs, Gracie Films/ABC; WOOPS, Witt-Thomas/Fox) and one ill-fated, never-seen hour long pilot starring O.J. Simpson, Handler is a veteran of seven Broadway productions, including leading roles in Six Degrees of Separation; I Hate Hamlet; Broadway Bound; Brighton Beach Memoirs; Solomon's Child; and the national touring company of Master Harold....and the boys.  

Handler has made numerous appearances Off-Broadway in Big Al and Slam, at Ensemble Studio Theater, Big Al again, at American Jewish Theater; Donald Marguiles's Found a Peanut at the Public Theater and What's Wrong With This Picture at Manhattan Theater Club -- as well as starring world and American premieres at top-flight regional theaters such as the Seattle Rep, Steppenwolf Theater, and the Mark Taper Forum. 

Though he may be best known for his dramatic exit for his last Broadway adventure I Hate Hamlet -- which he quit mid-performance after being struck by a sword-wielding Nicol Williamson -- Evan has, on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in television and films, worked with some of the most influential film, theater, and literary artists of our time. In addition to Ron Howard and Oliver Stone they include Athol Fugard and Zakes Mokae; Tony Kushner; Jerry Zaks; Chaim Potok; John Guare; James L. Brooks; Larry Kramer; Neil Simon; Donald Marguiles; and Daniel Sullivan. 

Evan is the author of Time On Fire, a critically acclaimed one-man show that has played to sold-out audiences in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Baltimore.  His writing credits also include assignments for The New Yorker, ELLE magazine, Mirabella, USA Weekend and O, the Oprah Magazine.  His first book Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors, an expanded telling of his on-stage memoir, was published to overwhelming positive critical response by Little, Brown and Company in January 1996, and again in paperback by Henry Holt in '97. He has written a screenplay adaptation of his book, scheduled for production in 2000. Handler has participated as an actor with the Sundance Institute playwright's and film maker's labs over seven separate summers, and attended in January of '98 for the first time as a writer with his own screenplay. He is currently at work on his second.

He is currently working on his second book, a collection of autobiographical essays entitled It's Only Temporary… The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive, to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2006. 

Evan married Elisa Atti in October 2003, in New York City.