Jeff Greenstein
Jeff Greenstein grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and attended Tufts University in Boston, where he started as a computer science major, careened through the art history department, and ended up with a degree in film and dance. This is now the recommended path if one wishes to pursue rewarding career in television comedy.
His first job was on HBO’s Dream On, where he remained for five seasons, rising from staff writer to showrunner and garnering several industry awards, including the both coveted and defunct CableACE Award, along the way. He then signed on for the first year of NBC’s Friends, doing punch-up work on the pilot, creating the beloved character of Janice, and earning Emmy nominations as both supervising producer of the series and as co-writer of the show’s first Thanksgiving episode. That same year he co-created Fox’s Partners, starring Jon Cryer and Tate Donovan, which won plenty of critical plaudits but alas, no second season. He followed that by co-creating Fox’s Getting Personal, starring Jon Cryer and Vivica Fox, which won a second season but alas, no critical plaudits.
Tacking in a new direction, Jeff joined the staff of NBC’s Will & Grace early in its inaugural year. He spent six years as senior writer and Seasons 5 and 6 as showrunner, picking up an Emmy for Best Comedy Series, six nominations, and a writing nomination — the only one in the series’ history — for the one-hour flashback episode “Lows in the Mid-Eighties.” Will & Grace also went 0 for 30 at the Golden Globes during Jeff’s tenure, so he can take credit for that, too.
Venturing into one-hour drama, Jeff joined the staff of ABC’s Desperate Housewives for its third season. He remained with the show for three years, decamped for a year to launch NBC’s acclaimed drama Parenthood, then rejoined Housewives in Season 7 as writer, executive producer and director. Making his directorial debut with a memorable Halloween episode, Jeff helmed two more episodes over the series’ final two seasons, most notably one which saw the shocking death of series regular Mike Delfino.
In 2011 Jeff directed and executive produced the web series Husbands, co-created by Jane Espenson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica), which received a rave review in the print edition of The New Yorker — the first web series to merit such attention — and was voted TVLine’s Best Web Series of 2011. The second season premiered the following year, racking up over 100,000 views in its first month and earning praise from Time, Entertainment Weekly and The Atlantic. That same year Jeff journeyed to London to write and direct the season finale of Way to Go, a dark comedy produced by Jon Plowman (Absolutely Fabulous, The Office) which premiered on BBC3 in January of 2013.
In the years since, Jeff has divided his time between writing searing unproduced drama pilots and directing multicamera half-hours. He helmed the lion’s share of the first two seasons of CBS’s Mom, starring Anna Faris and Allison Janney (who won the Best Actress Emmy for Season 2) as well as multiple episodes of The Odd Couple, 9JKL, Happy Together and The Neighborhood. In 2020 he also directed and executive produced the 2020 Amazon comedy special Sarah J. Halstead: RVs and Cats, recorded live at Second City in Hollywood.
Currently Jeff is writing a Christmas movie for Disney+ which he’s also attached to direct. Other current projects include an animated series for Netflix, a thriller for AMC, a sitcom about fourth-century Rome, and a feature film about his father’s antics during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In his spare time he produces and co-hosts the acclaimed film photography podcast I Dream of Cameras, and he recently wrote and performed a comedic monologue about the internet at the Ruskin Theatre in Santa Monica.