Bio

Mark Whitney is a writer, producer, performer and serial entrepreneur. Since 2006, Mark has toured his continually updated, award-winning, 90 minute one-man show across the North American Independent Theatre Circuit.

Mark and his wife, Julie, live in San Diego, CA and Burlington, VT.

In response to the dearth of meaningful stage time, Mark founded the San Diego Comedy Co-op in an old warehouse where Dreamworks used to be. He produced nearly 500 free shows for the community over the course of three years. Co-op regulars included Wyatt Cenac (comedian & writer/correspondent, The Daily Show), Natasha Leggero (actress, comedian & judge, Last Comic Standing) and Anthony Jesilnik (comedian & writer, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, whose debut comedy album ”Shakespeare and creator of “Best Comedy Album 2010″ according to Punchline Magazine). Mark closed the Co-op when he turned pro.

Mark won the San Francisco Comedy Convention for stand-up comedy, the D.C. Theatre Festival, Iowa Theatre Festival, Boulder International Theatre Festival, the Minnesota Theatre Festival and the San Francisco Theatre Festival. “Fool” was an Official Selection of the New York International Theatre Festival and the Midtown International Theatre Festival, respectively. Mark also has a shelf full of public speaking awards.

Critics liken him to Mark Twain, Lewis Black, Rodney Dangerfield, Tim Allen, Michael Moore, Mort Sahl, Mike Daisey, and fellow Rhode Island native, Spalding Gray.

Mark was recently profiled by Robert McKee for ‘Storylogue.’

“Getting the call from McKee, being featured in his marketing materials and then interviewed for Storylogue, was an incredible honor. McKee is someone I have long admired and he is widely respected throughout the entertainment industry. I work hard to be prepared before taking the stage. I leave nothing to chance. But, I owe McKee a tremendous debt for teaching me the chemistry and processes of ‘story’ in a way that invited me to individualize those processes and make them my own.”

Mark always wanted to be a comedian. But, Vermont didn’t have a comedy club. So, in 1996, he ran for the Vermont Senate. “I had a genius platform,” he explains. “Other politicians get elected then go to prison, why should I be prejudiced for doing it the other way around?”

Mark’s decision prompted the following response from the Windsor Chronicle: “While we probably wouldn’t vote for Whitney, we would travel to see him perform at a political forum. He’s destined for greatness somewhere, just not in the Vermont Senate.”

NYTheatre.com calls Mark “the foremost amateur attorney in the history of the United States!”

“I have a diploma from a place called ‘Otter Valley Union High School’ and ‘Yes,’ the mascot is an otter,” Mark says. “In my 20s, I got in trouble with the Government at a time when I had just become a new father. This experience, and the timing of it, changed my life forever. The official reason I got in trouble is that I lied to the bank to get a business loan. The real reason is that — like the United States today — I abused money and credit.”

In the course of defending himself, Mark spent approximately 5,000 hours over the course of several years, hunkered down in the law libraries of Dartmouth College, Vermont Law School and five different Federal prisons.

“I studied and studied, until I finally learned enough to convince Stephen Breyer – then Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, now a United States Supreme Court Justice – to order my immediate release from Federal prison. That was April 1993. I had been unlawfully detained for 452 days pursuant to a Federal court order that was patently unconstitutional; or as journalists like to call it, ‘a technicality.’”

Since his release, Mark has been on an entrepreneurial and creative tear.

In 1996 he co-founded AIRS which revolutionized executive search. In 1999, he founded TheLaw.net Corporation, still serving as CEO. “The centerpiece of TheLaw.net is a syndicated, proprietary case law database used by half of the nation’s attorneys. It has always been a goal of TheLaw.net to promote access to justice by ensuring that every attorney can see every case, regardless of firm size, practice area or jurisdiction. Today, we have the best algorithm of any legal research infomediary. There is no question that I have this sort-of dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship with the nation’s lawyers.”

“I am fascinated by power, the sources of power, and how power in the form of political capital is used – like money – as a scorecard. I am especially fascinated by the abuse of power, which is the definition of corruption.”

Politically Mark describes himself as Unrepresented (U). “My political philosophy is the same as my life philosophy — don’t spend a dollar you don’t have, keep your nose out of other people’s business, create, dissent, and try to remember the Golden Rule.”

Mark serves on the Advisory Board of the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington D.C., his legal research company provides free subscriptions to non-profit organizations who cannot afford to purchase one and he speaks and performs for free for well-intentioned groups that ask nicely.

“As a youth I invented the snowboard by repeatedly standing up on the toboggan as it plummeted down an enormous mountain. Several years later, Jake Burton invented bindings and stole all the credit. The point being that as a child, I regularly landed on my head.”

Asked if he believes this explains some things Mark concedes, “It explains a lot. My show explains the rest.”