Barry Katz was born in Longmeadow, Massachusetts and graduated from Boston University with a degree specializing in working with the disabled. Katz started his "alternative" career as a stand-up comic in Beantown, and it was there that he performed with such established artists as Denis Leary, Bob Goldthwait, and Steven Wright; while also managing various comedy clubs in the New England area for over a decade. In the early 90's, he decided to quit performing and move to New York City, opening up the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village, while simultaneously starting his own management company that immediately landed 4 clients on Saturday Night Live. This led him to expand his operation to LA where he signed a 4 year overall executive producer deal with Disney to develop television shows, and went on to broker an unprecedented 100 TV development deals.
After 15 successful years at the helm of his own company, in 2003 Katz merged his business with New Wave Entertainment and over the next 8 years, helped build it into a respected full service talent management, digital distribution, and TV/film production company with over 25 managers, producers, and development executives. Universally known for helping launch the careers of some of the most groundbreaking comedy artists in the business-including Dave Chappelle, Dane Cook, Anthony Clark, Nick Swardson, Tracy Morgan, Nick DiPaolo, Darrell Hammond, Whitney Cummings, Jay Mohr, and Louis CK-Katz left New Wave in 2011 to go back to running his own company again.
Katz has produced multiple comedy albums that have gone gold, platinum, and double platinum, as well as producing several films including "Employee of the Month," "Good Luck Chuck," and "My Best Friend's Girl." Additionally, he has created three television shows (ABC's "The Next Best Thing," NESN'S "Comedy All-Stars," and the FOX sketch pilot "Naked But Funny"), and has executive produced over 30 different TV stand-up specials, documentaries, reality programs, and scripted shows including NBC's "Whitney," Fox's "Action," HBO's "Tourgasm," History Channel's "Houdini: Unlocking the Mystery," Comedy Central's "Christopher Titus: Neverlution," TBS's "Frank TV," Showtime's "Bill Bellamy: Crazy, Sexy, Dirty", and 7 seasons of the Emmy nominated NBC series "Last Comic Standing."
