Lorey, Dean 1967–

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Lorey, Dean 1967–

PERSONAL:

Born November 17, 1967, in Oscoda, MI; married; wife's name Elizabeth; children: Chris, Alex. Education: Graduated from New York University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Calabasas, CA. Agent—William Morris Agency, 151 El Camino Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90212. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Screenwriter, producer, director, and author. Television work includes 413 Hope St., Fox, coexecutive producer, 1997; My Wife and Kids, ABC, coexecutive producer, 2001-03, executive producer, 2003-05, director, 2003-05; Arrested Development, Fox, coexecutive producer, 2005-06. Actor in films, including Jason Goes to Hell and Major Payne.

MEMBER:

Writers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild of America.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Writers Guild of America Award nominations, 2005 and 2006, and Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, 2006, all for Arrested Development.

WRITINGS:

"NIGHTMARE ACADEMY" SERIES

Nightmare Academy, illustrated by Brandon Dorman, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007, published as Nightmare Academy, Book One: Monster Hunters, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2008.

Nightmare Academy, Book Two: Monster Madness, illustrated by Brandon Dorman, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2008.

SCREENPLAYS

My Boyfriend's Back, Touchstone Pictures, 1993.

(With Jay Hugely) Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, New Line Cinema, 1993.

(With Damon Wayans and Gary Rosen) Major Payne, Universal, 1995.

TELEVISION SERIES

413 Hope St., Fox, 1997.

My Wife and Kids, American Broadcast Company (ABC), 2004-05.

Arrested Development, Fox, 2005-06.

ADAPTATIONS:

Nightmare Academy was optioned for film by Universal Studios.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dean Lorey, a producer and screenwriter who worked on the Emmy Award-winning television show Arrested Development, is the creator of the popular "Nightmare Academy" series of horror novels for middle-grade readers. Lorey has also written the screenplays for such films as Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and Major Payne, and he served as a producer and writer for the sitcom My Wife and Kids.

Born in Michigan, Lorey grew up in Conyers, Georgia. "I pretty much always wrote since I was about eight years old," he told Jennifer Wardrip in a TeensReadToo.com online interview. "I loved writing short stories—usually about things coming out of swamps to drag people to their doom (I never claimed to be a normal eight year old)." Lorey attended film school at New York University; his big break came after a friend showed one of his screenplays to a producer in Los Angeles. A blend of comedy and horror, the story about a high school student who returns from the grave to attend prom was filmed as My Boyfriend's Back. Lorey later cowrote the script for Jason Goes to Hell, the ninth film in the iconic "Friday the 13th" series.

Lorey has enjoyed a successful collaboration with comedian Damon Wayans. The pair coauthored the 1995 film Major Payne, in which Wayans plays Major Benson Payne, a former Marine Corps commander making the difficult adjustment to civilian life. Hired as an instructor at a prep school, Payne soon finds himself befuddled and amused by his pint-sized charges. "The clash of hard-nosed Marine training and youthful antics are the grist of the film's comedy," noted Variety reviewer Leonard Klady, who added that the screenwriters "wisely do not tamper much with the pic's essential strength—its core idea." Lorey also served as a writer, director, and executive producer on My Wife and Kids, a family comedy featuring Wayans as a suburban husband and father of three.

In 2005 Lorey joined the crew of Arrested Development, a critically acclaimed television sitcom that revolves around the antics of the dysfunctional and incompetent members of the Bluth family. San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Tim Goodman dubbed Arrested Development "one of the most hysterically ridiculous half hours on television," and Robert Bianco, writing in USA Today, called the series "heaven-sent for anyone who has longed for something, anything, a little outside the comedy norm."

After the cancellation of Arrested Development, Lorey began work on the first of his "Nightmare Academy" titles. Discussing his inspiration for the series, the author told Columbus Dispatch interviewer Kevin Joy, "I had tons of nightmares as a kid—and the only good part about nightmares is waking up and realizing they're not real. So I got to thinking, What if your nightmares have real and terrible consequences?" Lorey's debut, published as Nightmare Academy, Book One: Monster Hunters, centers on Charlie Benjamin, a youngster who possesses an incredible power: the ability to summon creatures from the netherworld through his dreams. A contributor in Kirkus Reviews praised the story, describing it as "Men in Black for kids."

Lorey has garnered praise for his work in two seemingly unrelated genres. As he views it, "comedy and horror aren't really all that different—they're both out to get you on a gut level, to make you scream or make you laugh," he remarked to Joy. "I just want to be as entertaining as I possibly can."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH), Kevin Joy, "Scary Dreams of Childhood Spook Author's Imagination."

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007, review of Nightmare Academy.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2006, Michelle Kung, "Fright Night," p. 26.

San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 2003, Tim Goodman, "Latest Fox Comedy Arrested Development Is So Funny It's Doomed."

School Library Journal, December, 2007, Sharon Senser McKellar, review of Nightmare Academy, p. 135.

USA Today, October 31, 2003, Robert Bianco, "Development: Not Your Father's Family Sitcom, Thankfully."

Variety, March 20, 1995, Leonard Klady, review of Major Payne.

Washington Post, August 14, 1993, Richard Harrington, review of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday; March 24, 1995, Rita Kempley, review of Major Payne.