Maggie Carey

A background in improvisation and film production provided Maggie Carey with the experience and talent to write, direct and produce numerous episodes of television comedies like "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" (Fox, 2013-) and the bawdy comic feature "The To Do List" in 2013. Carey was raised in Boise, Idaho, and was active in academics and sports throughout her years in the city's school system, which concluded at Borah High School in 1993. She then earned a degree in English literature from the University of Montana and later, a master's degree in film production from the University of Texas, Austin, which she parlayed into a series of documentary projects, most notably "Sun River Homestead" (2004) for Montana Public Television. During this period, Carey was also performing improvisational comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade, and soon began making short comic projects, including "Jenny Clone" (2006) with her then-husband, actor-comedian Bill Hader of "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975-). In 2007, she teamed with actor-writer Liz Cackowski to create "The Jeannie Tate Show," an online comedy series with Cackowski as a suburban mom who hosted a talk show while driving to various errands in her minivan. The popularity of the series led to writing assignments for television, including the short-lived comedy series "In the Motherhood" (ABC, 2007), and a quartet of shorts for the Funny or Die website, which she produced, wrote and directed. In 2013, Carey wrote and directed "The To Do List," a sex comedy based in part on her own experiences growing up in Montana during the 1990s. The film, which starred her Upright Citizens Brigade co-star Aubrey Plaza, followed a bright if socially awkward teenager who makes a list of sexual achievements she wishes to accomplish before heading off to college at the end of the summer. The film, which featured a cast of her talented comedy peers, including Hader, Andy Samberg and Alia Shawkat, was a modest success at the box office, and led to more directing assignments for television, including episodes of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" (Netflix, 2015-), "The Last Man on Earth" (Fox, 2015-) and "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."